LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright JS T o. r 

SheltuV^L 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE SCHOOL SPEAKER 
AND READER 



EDITED BY 

WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE 

President of Bowdoin College 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

©be ^ttljenaettm JJress 

1900 



87889 

Librwr-y ofCoogw 
1*0 C<M1£S 8ECEWCB 

DEC 13 1900 

SECOtfOCOPY 

Oef'ww* to 

ORoea ojvision 
DEC 171900 



o 



\ 






Copyright, 1900, by 
WILLIAM DeWITT HYDE 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



TO 

GEORGE PALMER HYDE, 

WHOSE RECURRENT CLAMOR FOR "A PIECE TO SPEAK" 

TAUGHT ME WHAT TO PUT IN, 

AND WHOSE SCORNFUL REJECTION OF THE "BABYISH" OR "DRY : 

TAUGHT ME WHAT TO LEAVE OUT, 

THIS BOOK IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



You know that the beginning is the chiefest part of any work, especially in a 
young and tender thing ; for that is the time at which the character is formed 
and most readily receives the desired impression. For the young man cannot 
judge what is allegorical and what is literal, and anything that he receives into 
his mind at that age is apt to become indelible and unalterable ; and therefore 
the tales Which they first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. 

There you are right, he replied ; that is quite essential : but then, where are 
such models to be found ? and what are the tales in which they are contained ? 

And if they are to be courageous, must they not learn such lessons as will have 
the effect of taking away the fear of death ? Any deeds of endurance which are 
acted or told by famous men, these they ought to see and hear. If they imitate 
at all, they should imitate the temperate, holy, free, courageous, and the like. 
Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth, at last sink into 
the constitution and become a second nature of body, voice, and mind ? 

Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, which will 
sound the word or note which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern 
resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death, or is 
overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets fortune with calm- 
ness and endurance ; and another, which may be used by him in times of peace 
and freedom of action when there is no pressure of necessity, expressive of 
entreaty or persuasion, of prayer to God, or instruction of man, or, again, of will- 
ingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty and advice, and which represents him 
when he has accomplished his aim, not carried away by success, but acting 
moderately and wisely, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I 
ask you to leave : the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of 
courage and the strain of temperance. 

Then good language and harmony and grace depend on simplicity — I mean 
the simplicity of a truly and nobly ordered mind. And absence of grace and 
inharmonious movement and discord are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, 
as grace and harmony are the sisters and images of goodness and virtue. Because 
rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which 
they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making graceful the 
soul of him who is rightly educated ; and also because he who has received this 
true education of the inner being, with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices 
over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, will justly 
blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to 
know the reason of the thing ; and when reason comes he will recognize her and 
salute her as a friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. 

Plato : The Republic. 



FOREWORD TO THE TEACHER. 



The reaction against oral reading in our schools was 
wholesome. Time thus spent had come to be sheer waste. 
If getting words out of a book into the mind, and out of 
the mind into the air, is reading, then, the rudiments once 
mastered, the less of it the better. To cut down the time 
allotted to such formalities, and give it to nature study or 
history or algebra or French, was so much clear gain. 

There are, however, two ways to right a wrong. You 
may cut down your barren tree, or you may dig about it and 
fertilize it, and give it one more chance. This book asks 
one more chance for oral reading in our schools. When our 
food does not agree with us it is not always wise to fast. 
More food and better may be what we need. Because 
it is a waste of time to get words into the mind and out 
again, it does not follow that we should give up reading 
altogether. The apprehension and communication of ideas 
is just as profitable to a pupil as any one of the host of 
subjects with which our modern curriculum is crowded. It 
may be, too, that we shall find there something of the old 
delight and spontaneity of mental action which the pressure 
of our enriched programs threatens to banish from the 
school. Martineau, after all, may be right in saying : 
" The only knowledge that can really make us better is 
not of things and their laws, but of persons and their 
thoughts ; and I would rather have an hour's sympathy 
with one noble heart than read the law of gravitation 
through and through. To teach us what to love and 



vi Speaker and Reader. 

what to hate, whom to honor and whom to despise, is 
the substance of all training." 

Reading aloud is getting an idea and giving it to some- 
body else. Speaking is the same thing more carefully pre- 
pared. It consists of three parts : First, an idea, single, 
simple, short, bright, clear, which the pupil can see and feel 
and enjoy and like to tell; second, the apprehension of the 
idea ; third, the communication of the idea to others. To 
provide ideas is the task of the editor. The second and 
third parts of the work the pupil must do for himself, 
and the teacher must see that he does it, and help him if 
he does n't know how. 

The editor's task, as any teacher or parent who has spent 
a good half day in search of something for pupil or child 
to speak can well believe, was not easy. Unity, brevity, 
familiarity, novelty, are well-nigh inconsistent attributes. 
Yet all are absolutely essential qualities of a speech which a 
young person is to learn with pleasure and impart with joy. 

The range from which such subjects can be drawn is 
limited. It is of no use to present psychological subtleties, 
or ethical abstractions, or constitutional arguments. The 
youth can neither grasp these things himself nor impart them 
to others. I have found five sources of suitable selections. 

First, Nature. Sun and rain, the birds in the trees, the 
fish in the streams, the animals in the woods, all appeal to 
the lively imagination so characteristic of youth. The 
selections on this subject set forth the healthfulness, the 
attractiveness, the manliness of outdoor work and play. 
At the same time not every farmer or fisherman or hunter 
can write on haying, or trouting, or camping out so as to 
make it worth telling. Great care has been taken to secure 
for the interpretation of these more homely and primitive 
experiences men of literary power, like Bolles and Bur- 
roughs and van Dyke and Seton-Thompson. 



Foreword to the Teacher. vii 

In the second place, the youth knows through the study of 
history something about the men and events, the wars and 
heroes, the races and problems of his country. Washington 
and Lincoln and Grant are familiar names. He has read 
of the Indian and the Negro. He has studied the story of 
the discovery of America, of the Revolution, of the Civil 
War. He has heard the recent Spanish War talked of in 
his home. 

The passages dealing with American history constitute 
the unique portion of the book. The leading men and 
events, from the landing of Columbus to the Spanish W T ar 
and the debate about the Philippines, are presented in 
speeches, narratives, and poems calculated to fix the salient 
points in the minds of speakers and hearers. Properly 
" correlated " with the progress of the class in American 
history and with the celebration of national anniversaries, 
these selections offer the second point of contact with 
youthful interest and intelligence. 

Patriotism is the point at which the youth next becomes 
conscious of a larger life to which his individual life should 
be devoted, and thus affords the next appropriate theme 
for readings and declamations. 

Peace has its heroism as well as war ; and the exploits 
of the fireman, the policeman, the engineer, the explorer, 
the sailor, are equally calculated to stir the blood, and, in 
modern conditions, are more capable of practical emula- 
tion. In the fourth section, under the head of " Courage 
and Enterprise,'' while the heroism of the soldier is not 
excluded, the first place is given to the everyday heroism of 
the plain man who does his simple duty. 

Finally, under the general head of " Humor, Sentiment, 
and Reflection," are included, together with a few recent 
productions, the winnowed grain which long experience 
has sifted from the ephemeral chaff. I have excluded all 



viii Speaker and Reader. 

mere moralizing and preaching, and also all of those 
morbidly sentimental effusions which are at the same time 
so fascinating and so unwholesome for the youth. Here 
as elsewhere the speeches are calculated to work their 
moral effect, not by explicit exhortation, but by the admi- 
ration which the charm of nobleness and the reasonableness 
of righteousness unconsciously evoke. 

Besides furnishing brief extracts for reading and speaking, 
it is hoped that this book will stimulate the young people 
who use it to an interest in the books from which the 
selections are taken. To speak a selection well, the speaker 
should know as much as possible of the whole chapter of 
which the selection spoken is a part. In these days of 
free text-books it is highly desirable that good books should 
be bought and owned in the home. To facilitate these 
ends, and as a slight recompense to the publishers who 
have generously permitted the use of selections from books 
on which they hold the copyright, there are given, so far as 
possible, with each selection, the title, the author, and the 
publisher of the book from which the selection is taken ; 
and also, in the case of prose selections, the exact reference 
to the page or pages where the selection may be found. 

I desire to express my gratitude and deep sense of obli- 
gation to the authors and publishers who have most gener- 
ously contributed from their writings and publications the 
selections of which this book is composed. A large pro- 
portion of the selections are from recent books of great 
value, protected by copyright. I am indebted especially 
to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers for Bolles, 
Burroughs, Higginson, Torrey, Robinson, James, George 
Harris, Fiske, Harte, Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, 
Whittier, and Lowell, for some fifty selections ; Harper & 
Brothers, publishers for Curtis and Lodge ; Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, publishers for van Dyke, Du Chaillu, Seton- 



Foreword to the Teacher, ix 

Thompson, and Palmer ; The Century Company, publishers 
for Riis, Kobbe, Roosevelt, and Eliot ; Thomas Y. Crowell 
& Co., publishers for Brooks ; D. Appleton & Co., publishers 
for Joel C. Harris ; G. P. Putnam's Sons, publishers for 
Roosevelt \ D. C. Heath & Co., publishers for Dole ; C. P. 
Farrell, publisher for Ingersoll ; G. W. Dillingham Com- 
pany, publishers for Shaw ; Macmillan & Co., publishers 
for Farrar and Clough ; Lee & Shepard, publishers for 
Calvert ; The Whitaker & Ray Company, publishers for 
Miller ; Dodd, Mead & Co., publishers for Steevens ; Small, 
Maynard & Co., publishers for Dunne and Washington ; 
Little, Brown & Co., publishers for Hale and Parkman ; 
Cassell & Co., publishers for Depew ; Fords, Howard & 
Hulbert, publishers for Beecher. All these firms have been 
most generous in granting permission to use selections 
from their publications. 

In making these selections I have been assisted by Miss 
Bertha Palmer, editor of Stories from the Classic Literature 
of Many Nations, and Mr. Arthur S. Pier, of the editorial 
staff of the Youth's Companio?i. 

Having provided something the youth can appreciate, 
and which his schoolmates can enjoy with him, the task of 
the editor is done, and the rest of the work devolves upon 
the teacher. Elaborate elocutionary training is not to be 
expected in the school. Two things, however, are abso- 
lutely essential ; these the teacher must secure at all costs. 

First, the reader or speaker should understand the selec- 
tion as a whole. He should be able to state the substance 
of it in his own words. All the selections in this book have 
a single idea at their heart, which is easily apprehended by 
the average youth. It is the teacher's duty to secure the 
expression of this central idea through every word uttered. 
The instant the reader goes off into the mere repetition 
of words, without the sense of their relation to the idea 



x ' Speaker and Reader. 

of the selection as a whole, the teacher should interrupt 
him with the question, " What is that ? " or, " Precisely 
what are you trying to tell us ? " These questions will 
bring him back to the main point, and make the part 
expressive of the whole. 

Second, the teacher must insist on the personal relation 
and the conversational tone. In reading, after the rudi- 
ments are once mastered, the reader should never stand in 
the line with the class, facing the teacher or the wall ; but 
should step out in front of the class, face his classmates, 
and address his remarks to them. Trifling as this little 
matter of detail will seem to some, it is essential ; for the 
communication of ideas implies some one to whom the 
communication is made. When a reader or speaker has 
merely gained the idea from the book, and repeated it 
out loud, he has done only half the work. It is because 
so many persons, both in and out of school, forget 
the other half, that bad reading is so common. A 
minister who was out of a parish once came to Dr. 
Parker, of the City Temple, London, to ask his assist- 
ance. Dr. Parker told him to come to the Temple and 
preach a sermon to him. As soon as he had finished, Dr. 
Parker said to him: "I see perfectly well why no parish 
wants you. You were trying to get something off your 
mind ; not to get anything into mine." To get something 
into the minds of his classmates is quite as essential as to 
get something off from the mind of the speaker. At this 
point another matter of apparently trifling detail is abso- 
lutely essential. The other members of the class should 
close their books and look at the reader. It is a good plan 
to question the hearers, and see whether they get the idea 
from the reader. If they do not, the reader should be held 
responsible, and asked to read it over again for the benefit 
of the one who has failed to get the idea. Insistence on 



Foreword to the Teacher. xi 

the second point in reading is a great help in gaining the 
first ; for no one can give to another what he has not 
first gained for himself. Furthermore, in this give and 
take which good reading involves, there is a great moral 
gain ; for stupid, dull, unintelligent reading is an imposi- 
tion on the hearers, and will quickly evoke their criticism. 
When others are listening, and the reader fails to give 
them something interesting, he stands before them con- 
victed of being mean and selfish, a withholder of what is 
rightfully theirs. 

Reading thus conducted will prove the most enjoyable 
school hour of the day. Instead of being a formal exercise 
in the pronunciation of words and sentences, to be discon- 
tinued as early in the course as the law allows, reading 
will be retained as a welcome breathing space in the midst 
of the pressure of less personal and interesting studies. 
Instead of being a dreaded ordeal, the time devoted to more 
carefully prepared reading and speaking will become the 
gladdest and happiest half day of all the week. Reading 
will be simply speaking with the suggestion of the printed 
page at hand ; and speaking will be reading of what has 
become so familiar that the suggestion of the printed page 
is no longer needed. Each will help the other ; and both 
will be appreciated and enjoyed alike by those who receive 
and those who give ; though here, as everywhere, when 
once the lesson of giving ideas to others, simply, naturally, 
earnestly, and enthusiastically, has been learned, the speaker 
will find that it is more fun to speak than to listen ; that, 
though both are good, it is more blessed to give than to 

receive ' William DeWitt Hyde. 

Bowdoin College, 
Brunswick, Me. 



CONTENTS. 



Part I. — Nature. 



PAGE 



Migration. Frank Bolles i 

The Tragedies of the Nests. John Burroughs 2 

The Chickadee. Bradford Torrey 3 

The Sailor-Birds : The Gulls. Frank Bolles 4 

The Farmer-Bird : The Sparrow. Frank Bolles .... 5 

The Fiend in Feathers : The Owl. Frank Bolles .... 6 

The Housekeeping of the Birds. Thomas W. Higginson . 7 
How the Mother Partridge Saved her Brood. Ernest Seton- 

Thompson 8 

The English Lark. Charles Reade 10 

Robin Redbreast. W. Allingham 12 

The Whip-Poor- Will. Henry van Dyke 13 

The Freedom of the Fly. John Ruskin 15 

The Parrot. Thomas Campbell 16 

The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet. Henry van Dyke 18 

Raggylug. Ernest Seton-Thompson 21 

The Cat and the Bird and I. Henry Johnson 23 

The Mountain and the Squirrel. Ralph Waldo Emerson . 24 

The Red Squirrel. Rowland E. Robinson 25 

Catching a Grasshopper. Henry Ward Beecher .... 26 

The Council of Horses. John Gay 28 

The Chipmunk a Sign of Spring. John Burroughs ... 30 

The Cow. John Burroughs 31 

The Tiger. William Blake 32 

Old Streams or New? Henry van Dyke 33 

The Open Fire. Henry va7i Dyke 35 

xiii 



xiv Contents, 



PAGE 



The Fisherman's Joy. Henry van Dyke 36 

Living in Tents. Henry van Dyke 37 

Thistles, and Folks who Are like Them. Bradford Torrey . 39 

The Town Child and the Country Child. Allan Cunningham 41 

Five Little White-Heads. • Walter Learned 44 

A Boy's Song. James Hogg 45 

Hiawatha's Fishing. Henry W. Longfellow 46 

Song of the Brook. Alfred Tennyson 49 

The Farmer's Life. John Burroughs 51 

Haying. John Bttrroughs 52 

Hay. The Bard of the Di?nbovitsa. Translated by Alma 

Strettell 53 

The Sailor's Consolation. Charles Dibdin 55 

March. William Wordsworth 56 

Three Years she Grew. William Wordsworth 57 

The Cloud. Percy By s she Shelley 59 

The Speech of the Long Night. Paul Du Chaillu ... 60 

The Reappearance of the Sun. Paul Du Chaillu .... 61 



Part II. — American History. 

Columbus. Arthur Hugh C lough . 63 

Columbus. Joaquin Miller 64 

Reception of Columbus by the Spanish Court at Barcelona. 

Washington Lrving 66 

Columbus. James Montgo7nery 68 

The Melancholy Night. John Fiske 70 

Sufferings and Destiny of the Pilgrims. Edward Everett . 71 

Where Plymouth Rock Crops out. Wendell Phillips . . 73 

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. Felicia D. Hemans ... 74 

Miles Standish. Henry W. Longfellow 76 

Pocahontas. George P. Morris 78 

The Fall of Quebec. Francis Park?nan 79 

General Wolfe's Address to his Army. James Wolfe ... 80 

Salem Witchcraft. Heiiry W. Longfellow 82 



Contents. xv 



PAGE 



The Boston Tea Party. John Fiske 84 

General Gage and the Boston Boys. Thomas W. Higgi?ison 85 

Franklin's First Day in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin 86 

Speech in Virginia Convention of Delegates. Patrick Henry 88 

The Signing of the Declaration. George Lippard ... 89 

Independence Bell. Anony?nous 91 

The Liberty Bell. Elbridge S. Brooks 93 

Speech against the Employment of Indians in the War with 

America. William Pitt 96 

Samuel Adams. George William Curtis 98 

Benjamin Franklin. Elbridge S. Brooks 99 

The Town Meeting. George William Curtis 101 

Difficulties of Traveling in 1783. John Fiske 102 

Washington's Triumphal Journey to New York. John Fiske 104 

Washington's Home. Edward Everett 105 

The Inauguration of Washington. John Fiske . . . . 106 

Washington at the Siege of Yorktown. Washington Irving 107 

Washington's Administration. George William Curtis . . 108 
Washington's Personal Appearance and Military Capacity. 

Edward Everett 109 

The Concord Fight, Ralph Waldo Emerso?i no 

Warren's Address. John Pierpont - . . . . in 

Lexington. Oliver Wendell Holmes 112 

Song of Marion's Men. William Cullen Brya?tt . . . . 114 

Francis Marion. John Fiske 117 

Address at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of Bunker Hill 

Monument. Daniel Webster 118 

First Bunker Hill Address. Daniel Webster 119 

Bunker Hill. George H. Calvert 121 

Ethan Allen's Own Account of the Capture of Ticonderoga 123 

Ticonderoga. J. B. Wilson 125 

The Battle of Trenton. Ano7ty?nous 127 

The Yankee Man-of-War. Anonymotts 128 

The Battle of Bennington. Edward J. Phelps . . . . 131 

Burgoyne's Surrender. George William Curtis . . . . 133 

Yorktown. John G. Whittier 135 



xvi Contents. 



PAGE 



The News of the Surrender of Yorktown. John Fiske . . 138 

Nathan Hale. Charles Dudley Warner 139 

Andre and Hale. Chauncey M. Depew 141 

Abraham Davenport. John G. Whittier \ 142 

On the Capture of the Guerriere. Anonymous . . . . 145 

Monterey. Charles Fenno Hojfman 147 

The Boyhood of Andrew Jackson. Elbridge S. Brooks . 148 

The Angels of Buena Vista. John G. Whittier .... 150 

John Randolph of Roanoke. Nathan Sargent .... 152 

Reply to Hayne. Daniel Webster 154 

Massachusetts; from the Reply to Hayne. Daniel Webster 155 

Webster at Bunker Hill. Sa7nuel G. Goodrich .... 156 

John Burns of Gettysburg. Bret Harte 158 

Little Giffen of Tennessee. Francis 0. Tic&nor .... 160 

The Heroism of the Present. George Willia?7i Curtis . . 162 

The Cumberland. Henry W. Longfellow 163 

The Bombardment of Vicksburg. Paul Hamilton Hayne . 165 

The Rock of Chickamauga. James A. Garjield . . . . 167 

Sheridan's Ride. Thomas Bttchanan Read 169 

Col. Robert Gould Shaw at Fort Wagner. William Ja?nes 171 
Lincoln's Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858. 

Abrahain Lincoln 173 

First Inaugural Address. Abraham Lincoln 173 

Address at the Dedication of the Gettysburg National 

Cemetery. Abraham Lincoln 174 

The Death of Abraham Lincoln. Henry Ward Beecher . 176 

Abraham Lincoln. Jaines Russell Lowell 177 

O Captain ! My Captain ! (On the Death of Lincoln.) 

Walt Whitinan 178 

Abraham Lincoln. Robert G. Ingersoll 180 

Abraham Lincoln. James Russell Lowell 181 

General Grant's Policy and his Greatest Victory. Elbridge 

S. Brooks 182 

General Grant. James Russell Lowell .183 

Grant's Claims to Fame. Tho?nas W. Higginson . . . 184 

General Grant's Courage and Decision. James G. Blaine . 185 



Contents. xvii 

PAGE 

General Grant as a Commander. Horace Porter . . . . 186 

General Robert E. Lee. The New York Herald . . . . 188 

The New South. Henry W. Grady 190 

Lowell's Independence in Politics. George William Curtis 192 

The Death of Garfield. James G. Blaine 193 

Captain Allyn Capron of the Rough Riders. Theodore 

Roosevelt 195 

The Rough Riders. Henry Cabot Lodge 196 

Address to the Rough Riders. Theodore Roosevelt . . . 198 

The Battle of Santiago. Henry Cabot Lodge 198 

The Battle of Manila. Heiiry Cabot Lodge 200 

The Right of the Filipinos to Independence. George F. 

Hoar 201 

The Secret of the Victory at Manila. Henry Cabot Lodge . 204 

Our Opportunity in the Orient. Albert J. Beveridge . . . 205 



Part III. — Patriotism. 

The Man without a Country. Edward Everett Hale . . 209 

The Meaning of our Flag. Henry Ward Beecher . . . 211 

The Flag. Charles F. Dole 213 

Who Patriots Are. Charles F. Dole 214 

The Army of Peace. Charles F. Dole . . 216 

The Love of Country. Walter Scott 217 

The Essence of Patriotism. William Jennings Bryan . . 21 8 

The Patriot. Robert Brownmg 219 

Arnold Winkelreid. James Montgomery 221 

The Duty of Public Service. Lord Rosebe7y 223 

What a Man Can Do for his Town or City. Charles H. 

Parkhurst . . 224 

The American Republic. George William Curtis . . . 225 

The Duty of Naturalized Citizens. Richard Gitenther . . 226 

Our Debt to the Nation's Heroes. Theodore Roosevelt . . 227 
Our Heritage from Washington and Lincoln. Theodore 

Roosevelt 22S 



xviii Contents. 



PAGE 



A Vision of War. Robert G. Ingersoll 229 

The British Soldier in China. Francis H. Doyle ....231 

The Roll-Call. Nathaniel G. Shepherd . . . 233 

The Picket Guard. Ethel Lynn Beers 234 

The Ship of State. Henry W. Longfellow 236 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic. Julia Ward Howe . . . 237 

The Cavalry Charge. George Parsons Lathrop .... 238 

My Maryland. James Ryder Randall 239 

Dirge for a Soldier. George Henry Boker 242 

Old Ironsides. Oliver Wendell Holmes 243 

Bannockburn. Robert Burns 244 

Ready. Phoebe Cary 245 

The Claim of the Negro. Booker T. Washington . . . 246 
" I Am Content." The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Trans- 
lated by Alma Strettell 247 



Part IV. — Enterprise and Courage. 

The Training of Firemen. Jacob A. Riis 250 

How John Binns, Fireman, Saved a Boy. Jacob A. Riis . 252 

Captain Tobin. The New York Sun 253 

The Locomotive Engineer. Chauncey M. Depew . . . . 255 

Riding on a Locomotive. Thomas W. Higginson . . . 256 

The Policeman. Theodore Roosevelt . . 257 

A College Team's Thanksgiving Game. Gustav Kobbe . . 259 

How John Gill Saved the " City of Paris." Gustav Kobbe 261 

The Wreck of the Birkenhead. F. W. Farrar .... 262 
How Keeper Atkins Wiped out the " Goading" Slur." 

Gustav Kobbe 263 

A Hero of the Furnace Room. The Toledo Blade . . . 265 

True Bravery. Charles F. Dole 268 

The First Circumnavigation of the Earth. John Fiske . . 269 

The Last Gladiatorial Contest. F. W. Farrar . . . . 270 
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity among the Esquimaux. Eivind 

Astrup 272 



Contents. xix 



PAGE 



Free Miners' Law in the Klondike. Frederick Pahner . . 273 

The Seminole's Reply. George W. Patten 275 

A Leap for Life. Walter Cotton 276 

The Ride of Jennie McNeal. Will Carleton 278 

The Execution of Montrose. William E. Aytotm . . . 283 

The Exile of the Acadians. Henry W. Longfellow . . . 286 

Jaffar. Leigh Hunt 288 

Lord Ullin's Daughter. Tho?nas Campbell 290 

Sir Galahad. Alfred Tennyson 292 

Toussaint L'Ouverture. Wendell Phillips 295 

Speech of Vindication on Being Condemned to Death. 

Robert Em??iet 298 

Gladstone's Manhood. Lord Rosebery 299 

Saint Crispin's Day. Williain Shakespeare 300 

The War Song of Dinas Vawr. Thomas Love Peacock . 302 

The Old Scottish Cavalier. William E. Aytoun .... 303 

The Glove and the Lions. Leigh Hunt 306 

Horatius. Thomas B. Macaulay 308 

Harmosan. Richard C. Trench 316 

The Loss of the Royal George. William Cowper . . . 318 

Description of Marmion. Walter Scott 320 

Lochinvar. Walter Scott 321 

Hunting Song. Walter Scott 323 

The Battle of Trafalgar. Samuel J. Arnold 325 

Bingen on the Rhine. Caroli?ie E. S. Norton 326 

Marco Bozzaris. Fitz-Greene Halleck 330 

Ivry. Thomas B. Macaulay 332 

Ye Mariners of England. Thomas Ca?npbell 334 

Battle of the Baltic. Thomas Ca?npbell 336 

Hohenlinden. Thomas Canipbell 338 

The Destruction of Sennacherib. Lord Byron .... 339 

The Eve of Waterloo. Lord Byron 340 

The Charge of the Light Brigade. Alfred Tennysoi . . 342 

The Charge of the Heavy Brigade. Alfred Tennyso7i . . 344 

The Bugle-Song. Alfred Tennyson 346 

The Victor of Marengo. Joel T Headley 347 



xx Contents, 



PAGE 



Herve Riel. Robert Browning 349 

How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. 

Robert Browning 355 

Incident of the French Camp. Robert Brow7iing . . . 358 

The Charge at Waterloo. Walter Scott 359 

Alexander Breaking Bucephalus. George Lansing Taylor . 361 

The Sirdar. G. W. Steevens 365 



Part V. — Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 

The Boy to the Schoolmaster. Edward J. Wheeler . . . 367 
How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Fine Bushy Tail. Joel Chandler 

Harris 368 

Laffing. Henry W. Shaw 369 

Aristokrats. Henry W. Shaw 371 

The Muskeeter. Henry W. Shaw 372 

" I was with Grant." Bret Harte . . . 373 

Mr. Dooley on Football. F. P. Dunne 375 

The Priest and the Mulberry Tree. Tliomas L. Peacock . 377 
On the Death of a Favorite Cat ; Drowned in a Tub of 

Gold-Fishes. Thomas Gray 378 

Rory O'More. Samuel Lover 380 

The Yarn of the " Nancy Bell." William S. Gilbert . . 381 

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. Oliver Goldsmith . . 385 

The Colubriad. William Cowper 386 

Speech of Mrs. Malaprop : On a Woman's Education. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 388 

Music-Pounding. Oliver Wendell Holmes 389 

Three Fishers. Charles Kingsley 390 

The King's Ring. Theodore Tilton ........ 391 

Where Lies the Land ? Arthur Hugh Clough .... 393 

The Fountain of Youth : A Dream of Ponce de Leon. 

Hezekiah Butterworth 394 

Vision of Belshazzar. Lord Byron 397 

The White Ship. Dante Gabriel Rossctti 399 



Contents. xxi 



PAGE 



Pegasus in Pound. Henry W. Longfellow 405 

A Ballad of the French Fleet. Henry W. Longfellow . . 407 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Henry W. Longfellow .... 409 
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Samuel Taylor 

Coleridge 411 

Helvellyn. Walter Scott 414 

Skipper Ireson's Ride. John G. Whittier 416 

The Garrison of Cape Ann. John G. Whittier .... 420 

The Inch cape Rock. Robert Southey 424 

Childe Harold's Farewell to England. Lord Byron . . . 427 

The Battle of Blenheim. Robert Southey 429 

The Chambered Nautilus. Oliver Wendell Holmes . . . 431 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Gray .... 433 

Christmas. Alfred Tennyson 434 

The Lost Leader. Robert Browning . 436 

The Village Schoolmaster. Oliver Goldsmith 437 

The Youth's Reply to Duty. Ralph Waldo Emerso?i . . 438 

The Minstrel. Walter Scott 439 

Wolsey to Cromwell. William Shakespeare 440 

Advice of Polonius to his Son. William Shakespeare . . 441 

Wolsey 's Soliloquy. William Shakespeare 442 

Antony on the Death of Caesar. William Shakespeare . 443 

Antony's Speech to Roman Citizens. William Shakespeare 445 

The Path of Duty Was the Way to Glory. Alfred Tennyson 446 

The Whistle. Benjamin Franklin 447 

My Grandfather's Spectacles. George William Curtis . 448 

Life's Measure. Ben Jonson 451 

The Sunny Side. Charles W. Eliot 451 

Importance of Little Things. Henry Ward Beecher . . 452 

Our Multitude of Helpers. George Harris 453 

The Society of Good Books. John Ruskin 455 

The Dignity of Work. Thomas Carlyle 456 

De Massa ob de SheepfoF. Sarah P. McLean Greene . . 457 

The Puritan. Thomas B. Macaulay 458 

The New Era. Thomas Carlyle 460 

When Napoleon Ascended his Throne. Wendell Phillips 461 



xxii Contents. 



PAGE 



Napoleon. Robert G. Ingersoll 462 

The Dead Napoleon. Williain M. Thackeray .... 463 

Joan of Arc. Thomas De Quincey 464 

A Man Passes for that he Is Worth. Ralph Waldo 

Ei?ierson 465 

Dying Dream of the Bishop of Beauvais. Thomas De 

Quincey 467 

The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk. Willia?n Cowper . . 468 

The Baron's Last Banquet. Albert G. Greene . . . . . 470 

The Other Fellow. William Hawley Smith . . . -• . . 473 



SPEAKER and READER. 

Part I. 
NATURE AND OUTDOOR LIFE. 

MIGRATION. 1 

Frank Bolles. 

One day all is calm and serene ; the next, though the 
sky is just as blue, and the sunlight just as warm, some- 
thing of unrest is in the air, and the birds are telling each 
other the story of the great journey. Songs are forgot- 
ten or sung only to greet the dawn and bless the night ; 
nestlings are trained to flight and led silent journeys 
through field, forest, or ether after food ; new scenes 
are visited, and the weak separated from the strong and 
left to die. Then, sometimes by day, sometimes by 
night, the hosts meet, drawn together by a force as 
irresistible and mysterious as magnetism, and finally the 
story of the great journey is written in fact once more. 

In the August mornings I hear the Swainson's thrush 
by the lake. He was not there a few days before, he 
was on the mountain-side. He is drifting southward. 
The chickadees, alert, courageous, and generous, are the 
convoys of the warbler fleets. In the late August and 
early September days the cherry and berry eaters gather 

1 From At the North of Bear camp Water. Pages 118-131. Copy- 
right by Houghton. Mifflin & Co. 



2 Speaker and Reader. 

together and travel in flocks. Robins by scores com- 
bine with the cedar-birds, and flicker and range over the 
country in search of food. Birds of the upper air which 
feed on insects depart early. Late in September and 
in October there are days when the rush of migrating 
birds is like the stampede of a defeated army. As the 
early October days glide by, these waves of migration 
come faster and faster, like the throbbing of the air 
under the wing-beats of the grouse. Even as the drum- 
ming suddenly ceases, and the summer air seems still 
and heavy in the silence which follows, so the migration 
suddenly ends, and the woods and fields become very 
still in the late Indian summer. All the beauty of sky 
and autumn foliage cannot bring the birds back to the 
silent forest. Warm though the sun may be, and soft 
the haze on the mountain-side, these charms cannot woo 
back the birds from their migration. They are dream- 
ing of gushing waters and flowers of fairest hue ; and 
many a frosty, starlit night will pass before their wings 
beat once more in the clear Chocorua air. 

% 

THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 1 

John Burroughs. 

The life of the birds is a series of adventures and of 
hair-breadth escapes by flood and field. Very few of 
them probably die a natural death, or even live out half 

1 From Signs and Seasons. Pages 63-65. Copyright by Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 3 

their appointed days. What perils beset their nests, even 
in the most favored localities ! The cabins of the early 
settlers, when the country was swarming with hostile 
Indians, were not surrounded by such dangers. The 
tender households of the birds are not only exposed to 
hostile Indians in the shape of cats and collectors, but 
to numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against 
whom they have no defense but concealment. They 
lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gardens 
and orchards, and under the walls of our houses. Not 
a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs are laid 
till the young are flown, when the chances are not 
greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its contents 
devoured, — by owls, skunks, minks, and coons at night, 
and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, snakes, and rats 
during the day. Infancy, we say, is hedged about by 
many perils ; but the infancy of birds is cradled and 
pillowed in peril. 

% 

THE CHICKADEE. 1 

Bradford Torrey. 

The chickadee is the bird of the merry heart. There 
is a notion current, to be sure, that all birds are merry ; 
but that is one of those secondhand opinions which a 
man who begins to observe for himself has to give up. 
With many birds life is a hard struggle. Enemies are 

1 From Birds in the Bush. Pages 58, 59. Copyright by Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



4 Speaker and Header, 

numerous, and the food supply is too often scanty. Of 
some species very few die in their beds. But the chick- 
adee seems to be exempt from all forebodings. His coat 
is thick, his heart is brave, and, whatever may happen, 
something will be found to eat. "Take no thought for 
to-morrow " is his creed, which he accepts literally. No 
matter how bitter the wind or how deep the snow, you 
will never find the chickadee, as the saying is, under the 
weather. It is this perennial good humor which makes 
other birds so fond of his companionship. Persons who 
suffer from fits of depression could hardly do better 
than to court the society of the joyous chickadee. His 
whistles and chirps, his graceful feats of climbing and 
hanging, and withal his engaging familiarity would most 
likely send them home in a more Christian mood. The 
time will come, we may hope, when doctors will pre- 
scribe bird-gazing instead of blue-pill. 

% 

THE SAILOR-BIRDS: THE GULLS. 1 

Frank Bolles. 

The gulls are the children of sky and ocean, bred to 
the storm. They have no music. Their voices are 
shrill like the boatswain's. They have no home save a 
spot of sand or rock where their young are reared near 
thundering surf and moaning tides. Their lives are long- 

1 From From Blomidon to Smoky. Page 208. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 5 

continued buff etings with wind and wave, voyages under 
white wings across monotonous wastes of water. They 
are the mariners among birds, and all their ways have 
the mark of the sea upon them. The sea rules them, 
charms them, binds them to itself, and robs them as it 
robs their human counterpart of much of the sweetness 
and rest of home. 

% 

THE FARMER-BIRD: THE SPARROW. 1 

Frank Bolles. 

The farmer is a burly fellow who rises early, whistles 
cheerfully if the sun be bright, works in all weather, 
keeps to the fields rather than to the forest, and to 
whose senses nothing is more pleasant than the rustle 
of corn leaves and the sheen of grain undulating in the 
breeze. Against him in the bird creation I set the 
sparrow. The sparrows love the sunshine. They are 
interested in the crops ; as a rule shun the gloom of 
the forest, and make their homes in fields and meadows. 
Before sunrise, in May, the clear whistle of the white- 
throat welcomes the coming dawn. Winter does not 
see the farmer moving to Florida or Cuba. He stays 
at home, breaking the ice in the pond for his cattle, 
scattering corn to his fowls, listening to the voice of the 
ice in the night, and having a gun ready for the fox 
prowling about the barnyard at dawn. 

1 From From Blomidonto S?noky. Pages 206, 207, 217, 218. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



6 Speaker and Reader. 

The birds around him in these wintry days are spar- 
rows. Truly, farmers and sparrows belong to the land, 
cling to it, live by it, love it. The English sparrow is a 
bird of a very different character. City-bred man with- 
out knowledge of lake and forest, mountain and ocean, 
is an inferior product of the race ; but the city-bred 
bird is worse. The English sparrow is the embodiment 
of those instincts and passions which belong to the lowest 
class of foreign immigrants. He is the bird of the city, 
rich in city vices, expedients, and miseries. The farmer's 
son who takes to drink in a city makes a hard character. 
The English sparrow who has taken to a similar form of 
existence is equally despicable. 

THE FIEND IN FEATHERS: THE OWL. 1 

Frank Bolles. 

Owls are murderers by night or robbers by day. 
They bear in their faces the imprint of evil. The owl 
reminds me of some men whom I have had the misfortune 
to know — silent and sinister by day, or when exposed 
to the scrutiny of their fellows ; but by night devils in 
thought, purpose, and action. To the owl everything 
which possesses the power of motion is, presumably, fit 
to be devoured ; quadruped, bird, fish, reptile, insect, 
mollusk, any or all, unless specially protected, invite to 

1 From From Blomidon to Smoky. Page 209. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 7 

murder ; so with some men, nothing is too pure, too 
beautiful, too defenseless to be sacrificed to their selfish- 
ness. One owl is enough for many miles of forest. 
Fortunately for society, owlish men are similarly scarce. 

% 

THE HOUSEKEEPING OF THE BIRDS. 1 

Thomas W. Higginson. 

When one thinks of a bird, one fancies a soft, swift, 
aimless, joyous thing, full of nervous energy and arrowy 
motions, — a song with wings. So remote from ours 
their mode of existence, they seem accidental exiles from 
an unknown globe, banished where none can understand 
their language ; and men only stare at their darting, 
inexplicable ways, as at the gyrations of the circus. Yet 
among all created things, the birds come nearest to man 
in their domesticity. Their unions are usually in pairs, 
and for life ; and with them, unlike the practice of most 
quadrupeds, the male labors for the young. He chooses 
the locality of the nest, aids in its construction, and 
fights for it, if needful. He sometimes assists in hatch- 
ing the eggs. He feeds the brood with exhausting 
labor, like yonder robin, whose winged picturesque day 
is spent in putting worms into insatiable beaks, at the 
rate of one morsel in every three minutes. He has to 
teach them to fly, as among the swallows, or even to 
hunt, as among the hawks. His life is anchored to his 
home. Yonder oriole fills with light and melody the 

1 From Out-Door Papers. Page 298. Copyright by Lee & Shepard. 



8; Speaker and Reader. 

thousand branches of a neighborhood ; and yet the 
center for all this divergent splendor is always that one 
drooping dome upon one chosen tree. This he helped 
to build in May, confiscating cotton and singing many 
songs, with his mouth full of plunder ; and there he 
watches over his household, all through the leafy June, 
perched often upon the airy cradle edge, and swaying 
with it in the summer wind. And from this deep nest 
after the pretty eggs are hatched, will he and his mate 
extract every fragment of the shell, leaving it, like all 
other nests, save those of birds of prey, clean and pure, 
when the young are flown. 

% 

HOW THE MOTHER PARTRIDGE SAVED 
HER BROOD. 1 

Ernest Seton-Thompson. 

Down the wooded slope the mother partridge led her 
brood toward the crystal brook for the first time to 
drink. She walked slowly, crouching low as she went, 
for the woods were full of enemies ; and the little balls 
of mottled down on their tiny pink legs came toddling 
after. Soon she spied a great brute of a fox coming 
their way. There was no time to lose. 

" Hide ! hide ! " cried the mother in a firm low voice, 
and the little things, but a day old, scattered to hide. 

1 From Wild Animals I have Known. Pages 307-310. Copyright, 
1898, by Ernest Seton-Thompson, and published by Charles Scribner's 
Sons. 



Nature. 9 

One dived under a leaf, another between two roots, a 
third crawled into a curl of birch bark, a fourth into a 
hole, till all were hidden. They ceased their frightened 
peeping and all was still. 

Mother Partridge flew straight toward the dreaded 
beast, alighted fearlessly a few yards to one side of 
him, and then flung herself on the ground, flopping as 
though winged and lame — oh, so dreadfully lame ! — and 
whining like a distressed puppy. Was she begging for 
mercy — mercy from a bloodthirsty, cruel fox ? Oh, 
dear, no ! She was no fool. One often hears of the 
cunning of the fox. Wait and see what a fool he is 
compared to a mother partridge. Elated at the prize 
so suddenly within his reach, the fox turned with a dash 
and caught — at least, no, he did n't quite catch the 
bird; she flopped by chance just a foot out of reach. 
He followed with another jump and would have seized 
her this time surely, but somehow a sapling came just 
between, and the partridge dragged herself awkwardly 
away and under a log, but the great brute snapped his 
jaws and bounded over the log, while she, seeming a 
trifle less lame, made another clumsy forward spring 
and tumbled down a bank, and Reynard, keenly follow- 
ing, almost caught her tail, but, oddly enough, fast as 
he went and leaped, she still seemed just a trifle faster. 
It was most extraordinary. A winged partridge and 
he, Reynard, the swift-foot, had not caught her in five 
minutes' racing. It was really shameful. 

But the partridge seemed to gain strength as the fox 
put forth his, and after a quarter of a mile race, racing 
that was somehow all away from the place where the 



io Speaker and Reader. 

little ones were, the bird got unaccountably quite well, 
and, rising with a derisive whirr, flew off through the 
woods, leaving the fox utterly dumfounded to realize 
that he had been made a fool of. 

Meanwhile Mother Partridge skimmed in a great 
circle and came by a roundabout way back to the little 
fuzz-balls she had left hidden in the woods. 

% 

THE ENGLISH LARK. 1 
Charles Reade. 

Near the gold mines of Australia, by a little squat- 
ter's house that was thatched and whitewashed in Eng- 
lish fashion, a group of rough English miners had come 
together to listen in that far-away country to the singing 
of the English lark. 

Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But 
at last, just at noon, when the mistress of the house 
had warranted him to sing, the little feathered exile 
began as it were to tune his pipes. The savage men 
gathered around the cage that moment, and amidst 
a dead stillness the bird uttered some very uncertain 
chirps, but after a while he seemed to revive his memo- 
ries and call his ancient cadences back to him one by 
one. 

And then the same sun that had warmed his little 
heart at home came glowing down on him here, and he 

1 From It is Never too Late to Mend. Page 119. 



Nature. 1 1 

gave music back for it more and more, till at last, amidst 
breathless silence and glistening eyes of the rough 
diggers hanging on, his voice outburst in that distant 
land his English song. 

It swelled his little throat and gushed from him with 
thrilling force and plenty, and every time he checked 
his song to think of its theme, the green meadows, the 
quiet, stealing streams, the clover he first soared from, 
and the spring, he sang so well, a loud sigh from many 
a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how 
tight the listeners had held their breath to hear him ; 
and when he swelled with song again, and poured forth 
with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet brooks, 
the honey clover, and the English spring, the rugged 
mouths opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips 
trembled, and more than one tear trickled from fierce, 
unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged cheeks. 

Sweet Home ! 

And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and 
cupidity, had once been white-headed boys, and most of 
them had strolled about the English fields with little 
sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise and 
heard him sing this very song. The little playmates 
lay in the churchyard, and they were full of oaths and 
drink and lusts and remorses, but no note was changed 
in this immortal song. And so for a moment or two, 
years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the 
memory, and the past shone out in the song-shine ; they 
came back bright as the immortal notes that lighted 
them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days ; the 
cottage, the old mother's tears when he left her without 



1 2 Speaker and Reader. 

one grain of sorrow, the village church and its simple 
chimes ; the clover field hard by, in which he lay and 
gamboled while the lark praised God overhead ; the 
chubby playmates, and the sweet, sweet hours of youth 
and innocence and home. 



ROBIN REDBREAST. 
W. Allingham. 

Good-bye, good-bye to Summer! 

For Summer 's nearly done ; 
The garden smiling faintly, 

Cool breezes in the sun ; 
Our thrushes now are silent, 

Our swallows flown away, — 
But Robin 's here in coat of brown, 

And scarlet breast-knot gay. 
Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 
Robin sings so sweetly 

In the falling of the year. 

Bright yellow, red, and orange, 
The leaves come down in hosts ; 

The trees are Indian princes, 

But soon they '11 turn to ghosts ; 

The leathery pears and apples 
Hang russet on the bough ; 



Nature. 1 3 

It 's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 

'Twill soon be Winter now. 
Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 
And what will this poor Robin do ? 

For pinching days are near. 

The fireside for the cricket, 

The wheat-stack for the mouse, 
When trembling night-winds whistle 

And moan all round the house. 
The frosty ways like iron, 

The branches plumed with snow, — 
Alas ! in Winter dead and dark, 

Where can poor Robin go ? 
Robin, Robin Redbreast, 

O Robin dear ! 
And a crumb of bread for Robin, 

His little heart to cheer. 



THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. 1 
Henry van Dyke. 

Do you remember, father, — 

•It seems so long ago, — 
The day we fished together 

Along the Pocono ? 

1 From The Builders and Other Poems. Pages 27, 28. Copyright, 
1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 



14 Speaker and Reader. 

At dusk I waited for you, 

Beside the lumber-mill, 
And there I heard a hidden bird 

That chanted "whip-poor-will." 

The place was all deserted ; 

The mill-wheel hung at rest ; 
The lonely star of evening 

Was quivering in the west ; 
The veil of night was falling ; 

The winds were folded still ; 
And everywhere the trembling air 

Reechoed "whip-poor-will." 

You seemed so long in coming, 

I felt so much alone ; 
The wide, dark world was round me, 

And life was all unknown ; 
The hand of sorrow touched me, 

And made my senses thrill 
With all the pain that haunts the strain 

Of mournful "whip-poor-will." 

What did I know of trouble ? 

An idle little lad; 
I had not learned the lessons 

That make men wise and sad. 
I dreamed of grief and parting, 

And something seemed to fill 
My heart with tears, while in my ears 

Resounded * i whip-poor-will . ' ' 



Nature. 1 5 

'Twas but a shadowy sadness, 

That lightly passed away ; 
But I have known the substance 

Of sorrow, since that day. 
For nevermore at twilight, 

Beside the silent mill, 
I '11 wait for you, in the falling dew, 

And hear the whip-poor-will. 

But if you still remember, 

In that fair land of light, 
The pains and fears that touch us 

Along this edge of night, 
I think all earthly grieving, 

And all our mortal ill, 
To you must seem like a boy's sad dream, 

Who hears the whip-poor-will. 

% 

THE FREEDOM OF THE FLY. 1 

John Ruskin. 

We can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free 
creature than in the common house fly. Nor free only, 
but brave. There is no courtesy in him ; he does not 
care whether it is king or clown whom he teases ; and 
in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in 
every pause of his resolute observation, there is one 
and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect 

1 From The Queen of the Air. Section 148. 



1 6 Speaker and Reader. 

independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the 
world's having been made for flies. Strike at him with 
your hand ; and to him, the aspect of the matter is, 
what to you it would be, if an acre of red clay, ten feet 
thick, tore itself up from the ground and came crashing 
down with an aim. He steps out of the way of your 
hand, and alights on the back of it. You cannot ter- 
rify him, nor govern him, nor persuade him, nor con- 
vince him. He has his own positive opinion on all 
matters ; not an unwise one, usually, for his own ends ; 
and will ask no advice of yours. He has no work to 
do — no tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthworm 
has his digging ; the bee her gathering and building ; 
the spider her cunning network ; the ant her treasury 
and accounts. All these are comparatively slaves, or 
people of business. But your fly, free in the air, free 
in the chamber — a black incarnation of caprice — wan- 
dering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his 
will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the 
heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the 
butcher's back-yard, — what freedom is like his ? 

THE PARROT. 

Thomas Campbell. 

The deep affections of the breast, 

That Heaven to living things imparts, 
Are not exclusively possessed 
By human hearts. 



Nature, 1 7 

A parrot from the Spanish main, 

Full young, and early caged, came o'er 
With bright wings to the bleak domain 
Of Mulla's shore. 

To spicy groves, where he had won 

His plumage of resplendent hue, 
His native fruits, and skies, and sun, 
He bade adieu. 

For these he changed the smoke of turf, 

A heathery land, and misty sky, 
And turned on rocks and raging surf 
His golden eye. 

But, petted, in our climate cold, 

He lived and chattered many a day : 
Until with age, from green and gold 
His wings grew gray. 

At last, when blind and seeming dumb, 

He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more, 
A Spanish stranger chanced to come 
To Mulla's shore ; 

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech, 
The bird in Spanish speech replied ; 
Flapped round the cage with joyous screech, 
Dropt down, and died. 

% 



1 8 Speaker and Reader. 

THE RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. 1 

Henry van Dyke. 

i. 

Where 's your kingdom, little king ? 

Where 's the land you call your own, 

Where 's your palace, and your throne, 
Fluttering lightly on the wing 

Through the blossom-world of May, 

Whither lies your royal way ? 

Where 's the realm that owns your sway, 
Little king ? 

Far to northward lies a land, 

Where the trees together stand 
Closer than the blades of wheat, 

When the summer is complete. 
Like a robe the forests hide 
Lonely vale and mountain-side : 
Balsam, hemlock, spruce, and pine, — 
All those mighty trees are mine. 

There 's a river flowing free ; 
All its waves belong to me. 
There's a lake so clear and bright 
Stars shine out of it all night, 
And the rowan-berries red 
Round it like a girdle spread. 

1 From The Toiling of Felix and Other Poems. Copyright, 1900, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



Nature, 1 9 

Feasting plentiful and fine. 
Air that cheers the heart like wine. 
Royal pleasures by the score. 
Wait for me in Labrador. 
There I'll build my dainty nest ; 
There I II fix my court and rest ; 
There from dazvn to dark III sing: 
Happy kingdom! Lucky king! 



11. 



Back again, my little king ! 
Is your happy kingdom lost 
To that rebel knave, Jack Frost ? 

Have you felt the snowflakes sting ? 
Autumn is a rude disrober : 
Houseless, homeless in October, 
Whither now ? Your plight is sober, 
Exiled king ! 

Far to southward lie the regions 
Where my loyal flower legions 
Hold possession of the year, 
Filling every month with cheer. 
Christmas wakes the winter rose ; 
New Year daffodils unclose ; 
Yellow jasmine through the woods 
Runs in March with golden floods, 
Dropping from the tallest trees 
Shining streams that never freeze. 



20 Speaker and Header. 

Thither I must find my way, 
Fly by night and feed by day. 
Till I see the southern moon 
Glistening on the broad lagoon, 
Where the cypress vivid green, 
And the dark magnolia s sheen, 
Weave a shelter round my home. 
There the snowstorms never come: 
There the bannered mosses gray 
In the breezes gently sway, 
Hanging low on every side 
Round the covert where I hide. 
There I hold my winter court, 
Full of merriment and sport : 
There I take my ease and sing : 
Happy kingdom! Lucky king! 

hi. 

Little boaster, vagrant king ! 

Neither north nor south is yours : 
You Ve no kingdom that endures. 

Wandering every fall and spring, 

With your painted crown so slender, 
And your talk of royal splendor 
Must I call you a Pretender, 
Landless king ? 

Never king by right divine 
Ruled a richer realm than mine ! 
What are lands and golden crowns, 
Armies, fortresses, and towns, 



Nature. 2 1 

Jewels, scepters, robes, and rings, — 
What are these to song and wings ? 
Everywhere that I can fly, 
Tliere I own the earth and sky ; 
Everywhere that I can sing, 
There Vm happy as a king. 

RAGGYLUG. 1 

Ernest Seton-Thompson. 

Raggylug was a young cottontail rabbit. He lived 
in a nest in a swamp, where his mother had hidden him. 
She had partly covered him with some of the bedding, 
and her last warning was to " lay low and say nothing, 
whatever happens." Though tucked in bed he was 
wide awake. After a while he heard a strange rustling 
of the leaves in the near thicket. It was an odd sound, 
and though it went this way and that way and came 
ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with it. 

Rag felt he knew what he was about ; he was n't a 
baby ; it was his duty to learn what it was. He slowly 
raised his roly-poly body on his short fluffy legs, lifted 
his little round head above the covering of the nest and 
peeped into the woods. The sound ceased as soon as 
he moved. He saw nothing, so took one step forward 

1 From Wild Animals I have Known. Pages 93-100. Copyright, 
1898, by Ernest Seton-Thompson, and published by Charles Scribner's 
Sons. 



22 Speaker and Reader. 

to a clear view, and instantly found himself face to face 
with an enormous black serpent. 

"Mammy!" he screamed in mortal terror as the 
monster darted at him. With all the strength of his 
tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the snake 
had him by one ear and w T hipped around him with his 
coils to gloat over the helpless little baby bunny he had 
secured for dinner. 

" Mam-my, Mam-my," gasped poor little Raggylug as 
the cruel monster began slowly choking him to death. 
Very soon the little one's cry would have ceased, but 
bounding through the woods straight as an arrow came 
Mammy; no longer a shy, helpless little Molly Cotton- 
tail, ready to fly from a shadow ; the mother's love was 
strong in her. The cry of her baby had filled her with 
the courage of a hero, and hop she went over that 
terrible reptile. Whack, she struck down at him with 
her sharp hind claws as she passed, giving him such a 
stinging blow that he squirmed with pain and hissed 
with anger. " M-a-m-m-y ! " came feebly from the little 
one. And Mammy came leaping again and again and 
struck harder and fiercer until the loathsome reptile let 
go the little one's ear and tried to bite the old one as 
she leaped over. But all he got was a mouthful of wool 
each time, and Molly's fierce blows began to tell, as long 
bloody rips were torn in the black snake's scaly armor. 

Things were now looking bad for the snake ; and bra- 
cing himself for the next charge, he lost his tight hold 
on Baby Bunny, who at once wriggled out of the coils 
and away into the underbrush, breathless and terribly 
frightened, but unhurt. Molly now had gained all she 



Nature. 2 3 

wanted. She had no notion of fighting for glory or 
revenge. Away she went into the woods, and the little 
one followed the shining beacon of her snow-white tail 
until she led him to a safe corner of the swarnp. 



% 



THE CAT AND THE BIRD AND I. 

Henry Johnson. 

I saw it, Christopher, — know you, 
And if you weren't just a cat, — 
But I will be patient and show you 
What good people think of all that. 

Among my stray notions there lingers 
A fancy that all things which live, 
Whether clawed or provided with fingers, 
Have a right to all this world can give. 

And here you go out in the garden 
And hide by a barrel — oh, fie ! 
With a heart so hard nothing can harden, 
And you look from the earth to the sky. 

'Tis nothing to you she's a mother, 
The dear little wren on the twig, 
She has only no spurs that will bother, 
And you are so strong and so big. 



24 Speaker and Header. 

You wriggle an instant and quiver 
As you plant your hind paws in the dirt, 
And then there 's a spring — and a shiver ; 
Your teeth stab her breast, and they hurt. 

Your judgment was good, you did reach her, 
And now you are creeping along, 
And drop the limp, lifeless creature 
Without a suspicion of wrong. 

What ? Christopher ! Winking ? You sinner ! 

Did ever / act like that ? 

"What was it / had for dinner?" 

Be out of this ! Off with you ! Scat ! 

% 

THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL. 1 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

The mountain and the squirrel 

Had a quarrel, 

And the former called the latter " Little Prig " ; 

Bun replied, 

" You are doubtless very big ; 

But all sorts of things and weather 

Must be taken in together, 

To make up a year 

And a sphere. 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 25 

And I think it no disgrace 

To occupy my place. 

If I 'm not so large as you, 

You are not so small as I, 

And not half so spry. 

I '11 not deny you make 

A very pretty squirrel track; 

Talents differ ; all is well and wisely put ; 

If I cannot carry forests on my back, 

Neither can you crack a nut." 

% 

THE RED SQUIRREL. 1 

Rowland E. Robinson. 

Of all the wild world's inhabitants, feathered or furred, 
none outdo the saucy red squirrel in taunts, gibes, and 
mockery of their common enemy. Derision is expressed 
in every tone and gesture. His agile form is vibrant 
with it when he flattens himself against a tree-trunk, 
toes and tail quivering with intensity of ridicule, or 
when from the topmost bough he pours down his chat- 
tering jeer. When in a less scornful mood, he is at 
least supremely indifferent, deigning to regard you with 
but the corner of an eye, while he rasps a nut or chips 
a cone. 

He exasperates when he cuts off your half-grown 
apples and pears in sheer wantonness, injuring you and 

1 From In New England Fields and Woods. Pages 1 78-181. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



26 Speaker and Reader. 

profiting himself only in the pleasure of seeing and hear- 
ing them fall. But you are heated with a hotter wrath 
when you catch sight of him stealthily skulking along 
the leafy by-paths of the branches, silently intent on 
evil deeds, and plotting the murder of callow innocents. 
Then when you see him gliding away, swift and silent 
as a shadow, bearing a half-naked fledgling in his jaws, 
if this is his first revelation of such wickedness, you are 
as painfully surprised as if you had discovered a little 
child in some wanton act of cruelty. 

It seems quite out of all fitness that this merry fellow 
should turn murderer, that this dainty connoisseur of 
choice nuts and tender buds, and earliest discoverer 
and taster of the maple's sweetness, should become so 
savagely bloodthirsty. But anon he will cajole you with 
pretty ways into forgetfulness and forgiveness of his 
crimes. Against his sins you set his beauty and tricksy 
manners, and for them would not banish him out of the 
world nor miss the incomparable touch of wild life that 
his presence gives it. 

% 

CATCHING A GRASSHOPPER. 1 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

To catch a grasshopper is no slight feat. At the 
first step you take, at least forty bolt out and tumble 
headlong into the grass ; some cling to the stems, some 
are creeping under the leaves, and not one seems to be 

1 From Star Papers. Pages T47, 148. 



Nature, 27 

within reach. You step again ; another flight takes 
place, and you eye them with fierce penetration, as if 
thereby you could catch some of them with your eye. 
You cannot, though. You brush the grass with your 
foot again. Another hundred snap out, and tumble 
about in every direction. There are large ones and 
small ones, and middling-sized ones ; there are gray 
and hard old fellows ; yellow and red ones ; green and 
striped ones. It is wonderful to see how r populous the 
grass is. If you did not want them, they would jump 
into your very hand. But they know by your looks 
that you are out a-fishing. You see a very nice young 
fellow climbing up a steeple stem, to get a good look- 
out and see where you are. You take good aim and 
grab at him. The stem you catch, but he has jumped 
a safe rod. Yonder is another, creeping among some 
delicate ferns. With broad palm you clutch him and 
all the neighboring herbage too. Stealthily opening 
your little finger, you see his leg ; the next finger 
reveals more of him ; and opening the next you are 
just beginning to take him out with the other hand, 
when out he bounds and leaves you to renew your 
pursuit. Twice you snatch handfuls of grass and 
cautiously open your palm to find that you have only 
grass. It is quite vexatious. There are thousands of 
them here and there, climbing and wriggling on that 
blade, leaping off from that stalk, twisting and kicking 
on that spider's web, jumping and bouncing about under 
your very nose, and yet not one do you get. If any 
tender-hearted person ever w r ondered how r a humane 
man could bring himself to such a cruelty as impaling 



28 Speaker and Header, 

an insect, let him hunt for a grasshopper in a hot day 
among tall grass ; and when at length he secures one, 
the affixing him upon the hook will be done without a 
single scruple, with judicial solemnity, and as a mere 
matter of penal justice. 

% 

THE COUNCIL OF HORSES. 

John Gay. 

Upon a time a neighing steed, 

Who graz'd among a numerous breed, 

With mutiny had fired the train, 

And spread dissension through the plain. 

On matters that concern'd the state, 

The council met in grand debate. 

A colt whose eyeballs flamed with ire, 

Elate with strength and youthful fire, 

In haste stept forth before the rest, 

And thus the listening throng address'd : 

" Goodness, how abject is our race, 

Condemn'd to slavery and disgrace ! 

Shall we our servitude retain, 

Because our sires have worn the chain ? 

Consider, friends ! your strength and might ; 

'T is conquest to assert your right. 

How cumbrous is the gilded coach ! 

The pride of man is our reproach. 

Were we design'd for daily toil, 

To drag the ploughshare through the soil, 



Nature. 29 

To sweat in harvest through the road, 

To groan beneath the carrier's load ? 

How feeble are the two-legg'd kind ! 

What force is in our nerves combin'd ! 

Shall then our nobler jaws submit 

To foam and champ the galling bit ? 

Shall haughty man my back bestride ? 

Shall the sharp spur provoke my side ? 

Forbid it, heavens ! reject the rein ; 

Your shame, your infamy, disdain. 

Let him the lion first control, 

And still the tiger's famish'd growl. 

Let us, like them, our freedom claim, 

And make him tremble at our name." 

A general nod approv'd the cause, 

And all the circle neigh'd applause. 

When, lo ! with grave and solemn pace, 

A steed advanc'd before the race, 

With age and long experience wise ; 

Around he cast his thoughtful eyes, 

And, to the murmurs of the train, 

Thus spoke the Nestor of the plain : 

" When I had health and strength like you 

The toils of servitude I knew ; 

Now grateful man rewards my pains, 

And gives me all these wide domains, 

At will I crop the year's increase, 

My latter life is rest and peace. 

I grant, to man we lend our pains ; 

And aid him to correct the plains ; 

But doth not he divide the care, 



30 Speaker and Header. 

Through all the labors of the year ? 
How many thousand structures rise, 
To fence us from inclement skies ! 
For us he bears the sultry day, 
And stores up all our winter's hay. 
He sows, he reaps the harvest's gain, 
We share the toil and share the grain. 
Since every creature was decreed 
To aid each other's mutual need, 
Appease your discontented mind, 
And act the part by heaven assign'd." 
The tumult ceas'd, the colt submitted, 
And, like his ancestors, was bitted. 

% 

THE CHIPMUNK A SIGN OF SPRING. 1 

John Burroughs. 

The first chipmunk in March is as sure a token of 
the spring as the first bluebird or the first robin ; and it 
is quite as welcome. Some genial influence has found 
him out there in his burrow, deep under the ground, 
and waked him up, and enticed him forth into the light 
of day. The red squirrel has been more or less active 
all winter ; his track has dotted the surface of every 
new-fallen snow throughout the season. But the chip- 
munk retired from view early in December, and has 
passed the rigorous months in his nest, beside his hoard 

1 From Riverby. Page 145. Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature, 3 1 

of nuts, some feet underground, and hence, when he 
emerges in March, and is seen upon his little journeys 
along the fences, or perched upon a log or rock near his 
hole in the woods, it is another sign that spring is at 
hand. His store of nuts may or may not be all con- 
sumed ; it is certain that he is no sluggard, to sleep 
away these first bright warm days. Before the first 
crocus is out of the ground, you may look for the first 
chipmunk. 

THE COW. 1 
John Burroughs. 

What a beautiful path the cows make through the 
snow to the stack or to the spring under the hill ! 
always more or less wayward, but broad and firm, and 
carved and indented by a multitude of rounded hoofs. 
The cow is the true pathfinder and pathmaker. She 
has the leisurely, deliberate movement that insures an 
easy and a safe way. Follow her trail through the 
woods, and you have the best, if not the shortest, 
course. How she beats down the brush and briers and 
wears away even the roots of trees ! A herd of cows 
left to themselves fall naturally into single file, and a 
hundred or more hoofs are not long in smoothing and 
compacting almost any surface. 

All the ways and doings of cattle are pleasant to look 

1 From Signs and Seasons. Pages 238-240. Copyright by Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 



32 Speaker and Header. 

upon, whether grazing in the pasture, or browsing in the 
woods, or ruminating under the trees, or feeding in the 
stall, or reposing upon the knolls. It makes one's 
mouth water to see her eat pumpkins, and to see her 
at a pile of apples is distracting. How she sweeps off 
the delectable grass ! The sound of her grazing is 
appetizing ; the grass betrays all its sweetness in part- 
ing under her sickle. There is virtue in the cow ; she 
is full of goodness ; a wholesome odor exhales from her ; 
the whole landscape looks out of her soft eyes ; the 
quality and the aroma of miles of meadow and pasture 
lands are in her presence and products. I had rather 
have the care of cattle than be the keeper of the great 
seal of the nation. Where the cow is, there is Arcadia ; 
so far as her influence prevails, there is contentment, 
humility, and sweet, homely life. 

% 

THE TIGER. 

William Blake. 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry ? 

In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes ? 
On what wings dare He aspire ? 
What the hand dare seize the fire ? 



Nature, 33 

And what shoulder, and what art, 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart ? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand and what dread feet ? 

What the hammer ? what the chain ? 
In what furnace was thy brain ? 
What the anvil ? what dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp ? 

When the stars threw down their spears, 
And water'd heaven with their tears, 
Did He smile His work to see ? 
Did He who made the lamb make thee? 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night, 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? 

% 

OLD STREAMS OR NEW? 1 
Henry van Dyke. 

Which is pleasanter, to fish an old stream or a new 
one ? 

The younger members are all for the "fresh woods 
and pastures new." They speak of the delight of 

1 From Fisherman *s Luck. Pages 228-230. Copyright, 1899, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



34 Speaker and Reader. 

turning off from the highroad into some faintly marked 
trail ; following it blindly through the forest, not know- 
ing how far you have to go ; hearing the voice of waters 
sounding through the woodland ; leaving the path impa- 
tiently and striking straight across the underbrush ; 
scrambling down a steep bank, pushing through a 
thicket of alders, and coming out suddenly, face to face 
with a beautiful, strange brook. Your new acquain- 
tance invites you to a day of discoveries. From scene 
to scene you follow on, delighted and expectant, until 
the night suddenly drops its veil, and then you will be 
lucky if you can find your way home in the dark. 

Yes, it is all very good, this exploration of new streams. 
But, for my part, I like still better to go back to a famil- 
iar little river, and fish or dream along the banks where 
I have dreamed and fished before. I know every 
bend and curve ; the sharp turn where the water runs 
under the roots of the old hemlock tree ; the snaky 
glen where the alders stretch their arms far out across 
the stream ; the meadow reach, where the trout are fat 
and silvery, and will only rise about sunrise or sundown, 
unless the day is cloudy. All these I know ; yes, and 
almost every current and eddy and backwater I know 
long before I come to it. I remember where I caught 
the big trout the first year I came to the stream ; and 
where I lost a bigger one. I remember the pool where 
there were plenty of good fish last year, and wonder 
whether they are there now. Surely it is pleasant to 
follow an old stream. 



Nature. 35 

THE OPEN FIRE. 1 
Henry van Dyke. 

Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire. 

All the other creatures, in their natural state, are 
afraid of it. They look upon it with wonder and dis- 
may. It fascinates them, sometimes, with its glittering 
eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come pat- 
tering softly toward it through the underbrush around 
the new camp. The deer stands staring into the blaze 
of the jack while the hunter's canoe creeps through the 
lily-pads. But the charm that masters them is one of 
dread, not of love. When they know what it means, 
when the heat of the fire touches them, or even when 
its smell comes clearly to their most delicate sense, 
they recognize it as their enemy. Let but a trail of 
smoke drift down the wind across the forest, and all the 
game for miles and miles will catch the signal for fear 
and flight. 

Many of the animals have learned how to make. houses 
for themselves. The cabane of the beaver is a wonder 
of neatness and comfort, much preferable to the wigwam 
of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how thick 
and high to build the dome of his waterside cottage, in 
order to protect himself against the frost of the coming 
winter and the floods of the following spring. The wood- 
chuck's house has two or three doors ; and the squirrel's 
dwelling is provided with a good bed and a convenient 

1 From Fisherman's Luck. Pages 207, 208. Copyright, 1899, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



36 Speaker and Header. 

storehouse for nuts and acorns. The sportive otters 
have a toboggan slide in front of their residence ; and 
the moose in winter make a "yard" where they can 
take exercise comfortably and find shelter for sleep. 
But there is one thing lacking in all these various dwell- 
ings — a fireplace. 

Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire, 
and to live with it. The reason ? Because he alone 
has learned how to put it out. 

% 

THE FISHERMAN'S JOY. 1 
Henry van Dyke. 

Never believe a fisherman when he tells you that he 
does not care about the fish he catches. He may say 
that he angles only for the pleasure of being out of 
doors, and that he is just as well contented when he 
takes nothing as when he makes a good catch. He 
may think so, but it is not true. Even if it were true, 
it would not be at all to his credit. 

Watch him on that lucky day when he comes home 
with a full basket of trout on his shoulder. His face 
is broader than it was when he went out, and there is 
a sparkle of triumph in his eye. " It is naught, it is 
naught," he says in modest depreciation of his triumph. 
But you shall see that he lingers fondly about the place 

1 From Fisherman 's Luck. Pages 25, 26. Copyright by Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 



Nature. 37 

where the fish are displayed upon the grass, and does 
not fail to look carefully at the scales when they are 
weighed, and has an attentive ear for the comments of 
admiring spectators. You shall find, moreover, that he 
is not unwilling to narrate the story of the capture. 
Listen to this tale as it is told, and you will perceive 
that the fisherman does care for his luck, after all. 

And why not ? There is no virtue in solemn indif- 
ference. Joy is just as much a duty as beneficence is. 
Thankfulness is the other side of mercy. When you 
have good luck in anything, you ought to be glad. 
Indeed, if you are not glad, you are not really lucky. 

#S 

LIVING IN TENTS. 1 
Henry van Dyke. 

The people who always live in houses, and sleep on 
beds, and walk on pavements, and buy their food from 
butchers and bakers and grocers, are not the most 
blessed inhabitants of this wide and various earth. 
They live at second or third hand. They are boarders 
in the world. Everything is done for them by some- 
body else. 

It is almost impossible for anything very interesting 
to happen to them. They must get their excitement 
out of the newspapers, reading of the hairbreadth 
escapes and moving accidents that befall people in 

1 From Fisherman's Luck. Pages 14-16. Copyright by Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 



38 Speaker and Reader. 

real life. What do these tame ducks really know of 
the adventure of living ? If the weather is bad, they 
are snugly housed. If it is cold, there is a furnace in 
the cellar. If they are hungry, the shops are near 
at hand. It is all as dull, flat, stale, and unprofitable as 
adding up a column of figures. They might as well be 
brought up in an incubator. 

But when man abides in tents, after the manner of 
the early patriarchs, the face of the world is renewed. 
You watch the sky with a lover's look, eager to know 
whether it will smile or frown. When you lie at night 
upon your bed of boughs and hear the rain patter- 
ing on the canvas close above your head, you wonder 
whether it is a long storm or only a shower. 

The rising wind shakes the tent-flaps. Are the pegs 
well driven down and the cords firmly fastened ? You 
fall asleep again and wake later, to hear the rain drum- 
ming still more loudly on the tight cloth, and the big 
breeze snoring through the forest, and the waves plun- 
ging along the beach. A stormy day ? Well, you must 
cut plenty of wood and keep the camp-fire glowing, for 
it will be hard to start it up again, if you let it get too 
low. Cooking in the rain has its disadvantages. But 
how good the supper tastes when it is served up on a 
tin plate, with an empty box for a table and a roll of 
blankets at the foot of the bed for a seat ! You go 
to bed with cheerful hopes. A dozen times in the 
darkness you are half awake, and listening drowsily to 
the sounds of the storm. See, the dawn has come, and 
the gray light glimmers through the canvas. In a little 
while you will know your fate. 



Nature. 39 

Look ! There is a patch of bright yellow radiance on 
the peak of the tent. The sun must be shining. Good 
luck ! and up with you, for it is a glorious morning. 
And now you must be off to get your dinner — not to 
order it at a shop, but to look for it in the woods and 
waters. You are ready to do your best with rod or gun. 
But what you shall find, and whether you shall subsist 
on bacon and biscuit, or feast on. trout and partridges, 
is, after all, a matter of luck. 

It appears to me not only pleasant, but also salutary, 
to be in this condition. It brings us home to the plain 
realities of life ; it teaches us that a man ought to work 
before he eats ; it reminds us that after he has done all 
he can, he must still rely upon a mysterious bounty for 
his daily bread. It says to us, in homely and familiar 
words, that life was meant to be uncertain, that no man 
can tell what a day may bring forth, and that it is the 
part of wisdom to be prepared for disappointments and 
grateful for all kinds of small mercies. 

THISTLES, AND FOLKS WHO ARE LIKE 
THEM. 1 

Bradford Torrey. 

In a vase stands a tall swamp thistle, along with a 
handful of fringed gentians. Forgetting what it is, 
one cannot help pronouncing the thistle beautiful — a 

1 From The Foot-path Way. Pages 207-209. Copyright by Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 



40 Speaker and Header. 

close bunch of minute rose-purple flowers. But who 
could ever feel toward it as toward the gentian ? 
Beauty is a thing, not merely of form or color, but 
of memory and association. The thistle is an ugly 
customer. 

In a single respect it lays itself out to be agreeable ; 
but even its beauty is too much like that of some ven- 
omous reptile. Yet it has its friends, or, at all events, 
its patrons. If you wish to catch butterflies, go to the 
thistle pasture. No doubt it could give forty eloquent 
excuses for its offensive traits. Probably it felicitates 
itself upon its shrewdness, and pities the poor estate 
of its defenseless neighbors. How they must envy its 
happier fortune ! It sees them browsed upon by the 
cattle, and can hardly be blamed if it chuckles a little 
to itself as the greedy creatures pass it by untouched. 
Schoolgirls and botanists break down the golden-rods 
and asters, and pull up the gerardias and ladies' tresses ; 
but neither schoolgirl nor collector often troubles the 
thistle. It opens its gorgeous blossoms and ripens its 
feathery fruit unnoticed. Truly it is a great thing to 
wear an armor of prickles ! 

Can there be any one so favored as not to have some 
thistles among his townsmen and acquaintances ? Nay, 
we all know them. They stand always a little by them- 
selves. They escape many slight inconveniences under 
which more amiable people suffer. Whoever finds him- 
self in a hard place goes not to them for help. They 
are recognized afar as persons to be let alone. Yet 
they, too, have a good side. If they do not give help, 
they seldom ask it. Once a year they may actually " do 



Nature. 4 1 

a handsome thing/' but they cannot put off their own 
nature. Their very generosity pricks the hand that 
receives it, and when old Time cuts them down with his 
scythe there will be no great mourning. 



% 



THE TOWN CHILD AND THE COUNTRY 
CHILD. 

Allan Cunningham. 

(To be spoken by two persons in alternation?) 

Child of the Country ! free as air 
Art thou, and as the sunshine fair ; 
Born like the lily, w T here the dew 
Lies odorous when the day is new ; 
Fed 'mid the May flowers like the bees ; 
Nursed to sweet music on the knees ; 
Lulled on the breast to that sweet tune 
Which winds make 'mid the woods in June. 
I sing of thee ; — 't is sweet to sing 
Of such a fair and gladsome thing. 

Child of the Town ! for thee I sigh ; 

A gilded roof 's thy golden sky, 

A carpet is thy daisied sod, 

A narrow street thy boundless wood, 

The rushing deer, the clattering tramp 

Of watchmen, thy best light 's a lamp, — 



42 Speaker and Reader. 

Through smoke, and not through trellised vine 
And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines. 
I sing of thee in sadness ; where 
Else is wreck wrought in aught so fair. 

Child of the Country ! Thy small feet 
Tread on strawberries red and sweet. 
With thee I wander forth to see 
The flowers which most delight the bee ; 
The bush o'er which the throstle sung 
In April while she nursed her young ; 
The dew beneath the sloe-thorn where 
She bred her twins the timorous hare ; 
The knoll wrought o'er with wild blue-bells 
Where brown bees build their balmy cells ; 
The greenwood stream, the shady pool 
Where trouts leap when the day is cool ; 
The Shilfa's nest that seems to be 
A portion of the sheltering tree. 
And other marvels, which my verse 
Can find no language to rehearse. 

Child of the Town ! for thee, alas ! 

Glad Nature spreads nor flowers nor grass ; 

Birds build no nests, nor in the sun 

Glad streams come singing as they run. 

A May-pole is thy blossomed tree, 

A beetle is thy murmuring bee. 

Thy bird is caged, thy dove is where 

The poulterer dwells, beside the hare ; 

Thy fruit is plucked and by the pound 

Hawked, clamorous, o'er the city round ; 



Nature. 43 

Xo roses twinborn on the stalk 
Perfume thee in thy evening walk. 
No voice of birds ; but to thee comes 
The mingled din of cars and drums, 
And startling cries, such as are rife 
When wine and wassail waken strife. 

Child of the Country ! on the lawn 
I see thee like the bounding fawn, 
Blithe as the bird which tries its wing 
The first time on the wings of Spring. 
Bright as the sun when from the cloud 
He comes as cocks are crowing loud ; 
Now running, shouting, 'mid sunbeams, 
Now groping trouts in lucid streams ; 
Now spinning like a mill-wheel round, 
Now hunting echo's empty sound ; 
Now climbing up some old tall tree 
For climbing's sake. 'T is sweet to thee 
To sit where birds can sit alone, 
Or share with thee thy venturous throne. 

Child of the Town and bustling street, 
What woes and snares await thy feet ! 
Thy paths are paved for five long miles, 
Thy groves and hills are peaks and stiles ; 
Thy fragrant air is yon thick smoke, 
Which shrouds thee like a mourning cloak. 
And thou art cabined and confined 
At once from sun, and dew, and wind, 
Or set thy tottering feet but on 
Thy lengthened walks of slippery stone. 



44 Speaker and Reader. 

The coachman there careering reels, 

With goaded steeds and maddening wheels ; 

And commerce pours each prosing son 

In pelf's pursuit and hollos "Run": 

While flushed with wine, and stung at play, 

Men rush from darkness into day. 

The stream 's too strong for thy small bark ; 

Where nought can sail save what is stark. 

Fly from the Town, sweet child ! for health 
Is happiness, and strength, and wealth. 
There is a lesson in each flower, 
A story in each stream and shower ; 
On every herb o'er which you tread 
Are written words which, rightly read, 
Will lead you from Earth's fragrant sod 
To hope and holiness and God. 



FIVE LITTLE WHITE-HEADS. 1 

Walter Learned. 

Five little white-heads peeped out of the mold, 

When the dew was damp and the night was cold : 
And they crowded their way through the soil with 
pride : 
" Hurrah ! We are going to be mushrooms ! " they 
cried. 

1 From A Treasury of American Verse. Copyright by Frederick A. 
Stokes & Co. 



Nature. 45 

But the sun came up, and the sun shone down, 
And the little white-heads were withered and 
brown : 

Long were their faces, their pride had a fall — 
They were nothing but toadstools, after all. 

% 

A BOY'S SONG. 

James Hogg. 

Where the pools are bright and deep, 
Where the gray trout lies asleep, 
Up the river and o'er the lea, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the blackbird sings the latest, 
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, 
Where the nestlings chirp and flee, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the mowers mow the cleanest, 
Where the hay lies thick and greenest ; 
There to trace the homeward bee, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

Where the hazel bank is steepest, 
Where the shadow falls the deepest, 
Where the clustering nuts fall free, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 



46 Speaker and Reader. 

Why the boys should drive away 
Little sweet maidens from the play, 
Or love to banter and fight so well, 
That 's the thing I never could tell. 

But this I know, I love to play, 
Through the meadow, among the hay ; 
Up the water and o'er the lea, 
That 's the way for Billy and me. 

HIAWATHA'S FISHING. 1 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, 
On the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
With his fishing-line of cedar, 
Of the twisted bark of cedar, 
Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahma, 
Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes, 
In his birch canoe exulting 
All alone went Hiawatha. 

Through the clear, transparent water 
He could see the fishes swimming 
Far down in the depths below him ; 
See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like a sunbeam in the water, 
See the Shawgashee, the craw-fish, 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 47 

Like a spider on the bottom, 
On the white and sandy bottom. 

At the stern sat Hiawatha, 
With his fishing-line of cedar ; 
In his plumes the breeze of morning 
Played as in the hemlock branches ; 
On the bows, with tail erected, 
Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo ; 
In his fur the breeze of morning 
Played as in the prairie grasses. 

On the white sand of the bottom 
Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma, 
Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes ; 
Through his gills he breathed the water, 
With his fins he fanned and minnowed, 
With his tail he swept the sand-floor. 

There he lay in all his armor ; 
On each side a shield to guard him, 
Plates of bone upon his forehead, 
Down his sides and back and shoulders 
Plates of bone with spines projecting ; 
Painted was he with his war-paints, 
Stripes of yellow, red, and azure, 
Spots of brown and spots of sable ; 
And he lay there on the bottom, 
Fanning with his fins of purple, 
As above him Hiawatha 
In his birch canoe came sailing, 
With his fishing-line of cedar. 

" Take my bait," cried Hiawatha, 
Down into the depths beneath him, 



48 Speaker and Reader. 

" Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahma ! 
Come up from below the water, 
Let us see which is the stronger!" 
And he dropped his line of cedar 
Through the clear, transparent water, 
Waited vainly for an answer, 
And repeating loud and louder, 
a Take my bait, O King of Fishes!" 

Quiet lay the sturgeon, Nahma, 
Fanning slowly in the water, 
Looking up at Hiawatha, 
Listening to his call and clamor, 
His unnecessary tumult, 
Till he wearied of the shouting ; 
And he said to the Kenogha, 
To the pike, the Maskenogha, 
" Take the bait of this rude fellow, 
Break the line of Hiawatha!" 

In his fingers Hiawatha 
Felt the loose line jerk and tighten ; 
As he drew it in, it tugged so 
That the birch canoe stood endwise, 
Like a birch log in the water, 
With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Perched and frisking on the summit. 
Full of scorn was Hiawatha 
When he saw the fish rise upward, 
Saw the pike, the Maskenogha, 
Coming nearer, nearer to him, 
And he shouted through the water : 
" Esa ! esa ! shame upon you ! 



Nature. 49 

You are but the pike, Kenogha, 
You are not the fish I wanted, 
You are not the Kino- f Fishes ! " 



SOXG OF THE BROOK. 

Alfred Texxysox. 

I come from haunts of coot and hern 

I make a sudden sally, 
And sparkle out among the fern, 

To bicker clown a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, 
Or slip between the ridges ; 

By twenty thorps, a little town, 
And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river ; 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

I chatter over stony ways, 
In little sharps and trebles ; 

I bubble into eddying bays, 
I babble on the pebbles. 



50 Speaker and Reader. 

With many a curve my banks I fret 
By many a field and fallow ; 

And many a fairy foreland set 
With willow-weed and mallow. 



I chatter, chatter, as I flow 
To join the brimming river ; 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

I wind about, and in and out, 
With here a blossom sailing, 

And here and there a lusty trout, 
And here and there a grayling, 

And here and there a foamy flake 

Upon me, as I travel 
With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel, 

And draw them all along, and flow 
To join the brimming river ; 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots ; 

I slide by hazel covers ; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 



Nature. 5 1 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
Among my skimming swallows ; 

I make the netted sunbeam dance 
Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 

In brambly wildernesses ; 
I linger by my shingly bars ; 

I loiter round my cresses. 

And out again I curve and flow 

To join the brimming river ; 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

% 

THE FARMER'S LIFE. 1 

John Burroughs. 

The farmer has the most sane and natural occupation, 
and ought to find life sweeter, if less highly seasoned, 
than any other. He alone, strictly speaking, has a 
home. How can a man take root and thrive without 
land ? He writes his history upon his field. How 
many ties, how many resources, he has, — his friend- 
ships with his cattle, his team, his dogs, his trees, the 
satisfaction in his growing crops, in his improved fields ; 

1 From Signs and Seasons. Pages 244, 245. Copyright by Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 



52 Speaker and Reader. 

his intimacy with nature, with bird and beast, and with 
the quickening elemental forces; his cooperation with 
the cloud, the sun, the seasons, heat, wind, rain, frost ! 
Nothing will take the various distempers which the city 
and artificial life breed out of a man like farming, like 
direct and loving contact with the soil. It draws out 
the poison. It humbles him, teaches him patience and 
reverence, and restores the proper tone to his system. 

Blessed is he whose youth was passed upon a farm. 
Cling to the farm, make much of it, put yourself into it, 
bestow your heart and your brain upon it, so that it 
shall savor of you and radiate your virtue after your 
day's work is done. 

% 

HAYING. 1 

John Burroughs. 

Haying is the period of " storm and stress " in the 
farmer's year. To get the hay in, in good condition, 
and before the grass gets too ripe, is a great matter. 
All the energies and resources of the farm are bent to 
this purpose. It is a thirty or forty day war, in which 
the farmer and his " hands " are pitted against the heat 
and the rain and the legions of timothy and clover. 
Everything about it has the urge, the hurry, the excite- 
ment of a battle. Outside help is procured ; men flock 
in from adjoining counties, where the ruling industry is 

1 From Signs and Seasons. Pages 235-237. Copyright by Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co. 



Nature. 5 3 

something else and is less imperative ; coopers, black- 
smiths, and laborers of various kinds drop their tools, 
and take down their scythes and go in quest of a job in 
haying. Every man is expected to pitch his energies 
in a little higher key than at any other kind of work. 
The wages are extra, and the work must correspond. 
The men are in the meadow by half-past four or five in 
the morning, and mow an hour or two before breakfast. 
A good mower is proud of his skill. He stands up to 
his grass and strikes level and sure. You can hardly 
see the ribs of his swath, and when the hay is raked 
away you will not find a spear left standing. Hay- 
gathering is clean, manly work all through. Young 
fellow r s w r ork in haying who do not do another stroke on 
the farm the whole year. It is a gymnasium in the 
meadows and under the summer sky. 



HAY. 1 

Yesterday's flowers am I, 

And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew. 
Young maidens came and sang me to my death ; 
The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud — 
The shroud of my last dew. 

Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me 

Must needs make way for all to-morrow r 's flowers. 

The maidens, too, that sang me to my death 

1 From The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Translated by Alma Strettell. 



54 Speaker and Reader. 

Must even so make way for all the maids 

That are to come. 

And as my soul, so to their soul will be 

Laden with fragrance of the days gone by. 

The maidens that to-morrow come this way 

Will not remember that I once did bloom, 

For they will only see the new-born flowers. 

Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back, 

As a sweet memory, to women's hearts 

Their days of maidenhood. 

And then they will be sorry that they came 

To sing me to my death. 

And all the butterflies will mourn for me ; 

I bear away with me 

The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low 

Soft murmurs of the spring. 

My breath is sweet as children's prattle is ; 

I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness, 

To make of it the fragrance of my soul 

That shall outlive my death. 

Now to the morrow's flowers will I say : 

" Dear children of my roots, 

I charge you love the sun as I have loved, 

And love the lovers, and the little birds, 

That when ye bloom anew, 

They never may remember I am dead, 

But always think they see the self-same flowers; 

Even as the sun that ever thinks he sees 

The self-same birds and lovers upon earth, 

Because he is immortal, and for this 

Never remembers Death. 



Nature. 5 5 

Yesterday's flowers am I, 

And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew. 
Young maidens came and sang me to my death ; 
The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud — 
The shroud of my last dew." 

THE SAILOR'S CONSOLATION. 
Charles Dibdin. 

One night came on a hurricane, 

The sea was mountains rolling, 
When Barney Buntline turned his quid, 

And said to Billy Bowling : 
" A strong nor-wester 's blowing, Bill ; 

Hark ! don't ye hear it roar now ? 
Lord help 'em, how I pities all 

Unhappy folks on shore now ! 

" Foolhardy chaps who live in town, 

What danger they are all in, 
And now are quaking in their beds, 

For fear the roof should fall in : 
Poor creatures, how they envies us, 

And wishes, I 've a notion, 
For our good luck, in such a storm, 

To be upon the ocean. 

" But as for them who 're out all day, 
On business from their houses, 

And late at night are coming home, 
To cheer the babes and spouses ; 



56 Speaker and Reader. 

While you and I, Bill, on the deck, 

Are comfortably lying, 
My eyes ! what tiles and chimney-pots 

About their heads are flying ! 

"And very often have we heard 

How men are killed and undone, 
By overturns of carriages, 

By thieves and fires in London. 
We know what risks all landsmen run, 

From noblemen to tailors ; 
Then, Bill, let us thank Providence 

That you and I are sailors ! " 



MARCH. 

William Wordsworth. 

The cock is crowing, 
The stream is flowing, 
The small birds twitter, 
The lake doth glitter, 

The green field sleeps in the sun ; 
The oldest and youngest 
Are at work with the strongest ; 
The cattle are grazing, 
Their heads never raising ; 

There are forty feeding like one ! 



Nature, 5 7 

Like an army defeated, 

The snow hath retreated, 

And now doth fare ill 

On the top of the bare hill ; 
The ploughboy is whooping anon — anon — 

There 's joy in the mountains ; 

There 's life in the fountains ! 

Small clouds are sailing, 

Blue sky prevailing ; 
The rain is over and gone ! 

% 

THREE YEARS SHE GREW. 

William Wordsworth. 

Three years she grew in sun and shower, 
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower 

On earth was never sown ; 
This Child I to myself will take ; 
She shall be mine, and I will make 

A Lady of mine own. 

" Myself will to my darling be 
Both law and impulse : and with me 

The Girl, in rock and plain, 
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
Shall feel an overseeing power 

To kindle or restrain. 

" She shall be sportive as the fawn 
That wild with glee across the lawn 



58 Speaker and Reader. 

Or up the mountain springs ; 
And hers shall be the breathing balm, 
And hers the silence and the calm 

Of mute insensate things. 

" The floating clouds their state shall lend 
To her ; for her the willow bend ; 

Nor shall she fail to see 
Even in the motions of the Storm, 
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

" The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her ; and she shall lean her ear 

In many a secret place 
Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 

Shall pass into her face. 

" And vital feelings of delight 

Shall rear her form to stately height, 

Her virgin bosom swell ; 
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 
While she and I together live 

Here in this happy dell." 

Thus Nature spake — The work was done- 
How soon my Lucy's race was run ! 

She died, and left to me 
This heath, this calm and quiet scene ; 
The memory of what has been, 

And nevermore will be. 



Nature. 59 

THE CLOUD. 
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain, 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I am the daughter of earth and w r ater, 

And the nursling of the sky ; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain, when with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 



60 Speaker and Header. 

THE SPEECH OF THE LONG NIGHT. 1 
Paul Du Chaillu. 

The last day we saw the sun only the upper half was 
above the horizon at noon, and just as the rim was ready 
to sink I fancied I heard the " Long Night " say to me, 
" For one night of six months I rule at the North Pole. 
Then I am most powerful. In the course of countless 
ages I have frozen the sea and I have built a wall of ice 
so thick and so broad and so hard that no vessel will 
ever be strong enough to break through, and no man 
will ever reach the pole. I guard the approach to the 
pole and watch carefully the wall of ice I have built 
around it. When the sun drives me away and rules in 
his turn one day of six months at the pole (for the whole 
year is equally divided between us), he tries with his 
steady heat to destroy the wall I have built. On my 
return I repair the damage the sun has done and make 
the wall as strong as it was before. I send terrific gales 
and mighty snowstorms over oceans and lands and even 
far to the south of my dominion, for my power is so great 
that it is felt beyond my realm." 

There was a pause ; then I thought I heard the sar- 
donic laugh of the " Long Night." It seemed like a 
laugh of defiance. I shuddered when I remembered the 
names of the valiant and daring commanders who had 
led expeditions towards the North Pole and had perished 
in their endeavors, with the gallant men who had trusted 

1 From The Land of the Long Night. Pages 73-75. Copyright, 1899, 
by Charles Scribner's Sons. 



Nature. 6 1 

and followed them. Then I thought of the brave ex- 
plorers who had followed in their wake with better for- 
tune, for their lives had been spared, though they failed 
to reach the pole. The wall the " Long Night " had built 
could not be passed. 

As these thoughts came over me I exclaimed : " 'Long 
Night,' great and terrible indeed has been the loss of life 
among those who have tried to reach the pole, but the 
ingenuity of man is great, and in spite of the ice barrier 
thou hast built around it, we have not lost hope that man 
by some device of his own may yet be able to reach the 
pole." 



THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE SUN. 1 

Paul Du Chaillu. 

One day I saw a golden thread above the snowy hori- 
zon. It was the upper rim of the sun. I watched, 
hoping to see the whole sun. But it was at its meridian, 
and in a very short time the golden thread had disap- 
peared and the sun was on its downward course. I 
shouted : " Dear Sun, how much I should like to see 
you ! I am so tired of beholding only the stars and the 
moon. I am longing for sunshine." 

Near by was a hill. A sudden thought came into my 
mind. I said to myself: " If I climb this hill I shall see 

1 From The Land of the Long Night. Pages 109-111. Copyright, 
1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 



62 Speaker and Reader. 

the whole sun, as the greater height will make up for the 
curvature of the earth." 

I ran and climbed as fast as I could, and when I reached 
the top of the hill I saw the whole sun ; I shouted : " Dear 
Sun, I love you. I love sunshine. Come and reign once 
more on this part of the earth. Come and cheer me, and 
drive away the ' Long Night.' " 

I felt like a new being, for I had seen the sun and its 
sight had filled me with joy. Days of sunshine were 
coming, and I gave three cheers with a tiger for the sun. 
I had had enough of the " Long Night." 

The following day the sun rose slowly above the snowy 
horizon ; but only half of it appeared. It was of a fiery 
red. Then it gradually sank. The third day the whole 
of the sun appeared above the horizon, then in a short 
time sank below. As it disappeared I imagined the sun 
saying to me : " Day after day I will rise higher and 
higher in the sky and shine a longer time. I bring with 
me joy and happiness. I will gradually transform < The 
Land of the Long Night ' into a land of sunshine and 
brightness. I will bring the spring ; with me flowers will 
appear, the trees will be adorned with leaves, grass will 
grow, the land will be green ; I will make gentle winds 
to blow, the rivers will be free and roll their crystal 
waters, the birds will come and sing. Man will be 
happy and gather the harvest that grows under my rays 
and husband it for the days of winter." 



% 



Part II. 
AMERICAN HISTORY. 

COLUMBUS. 1 

Arthur Hugh Clough. 

How in heaven's 'name did Columbus get over, 

Is a pure wonder to me, I protest, 
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover, 
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest ; 

Bad enough all the same, 

For them that after came ; 

But in great heaven's name, 

How he should ever think 

That on the other brink 
Of this wild waste, terra firma should be, 
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. 

How a man should ever hope to get thither, 

E'en if he knew that there was another side 
But to suppose he should come any whither, 
Sailing straight on into chaos untried, 
In spite of the motion, 
Across the whole ocean, 
To stick to the notion 

1 Copyright by Macmillan & Co. 

63 



64 Speaker and Reader. 

That in some nook or bend 

Of a sea without end, 
He should find North and South America, 
Was a pure madness, indeed, I must say. 

What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy, 

Judged that the earth like an orange was round, 
None of them ever said, Come along, follow me, 
Sail to the West, and the East will be found. 

Many a day before 

Ever they 'd come ashore 

Sadder and wiser men, 

They 'd have turned back again ; 
And that he did not, but did cross the sea, 
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me. M 



COLUMBUS. 1 

Joaquin Miller. 

Behind him lay the gray Azores, 
Behind the Gates of Hercules ; 
Before him not the ghost of shores ; 
Before him only shoreless seas. 

1 Copyright by The Whitaker & Ray Co., San Francisco, Publishers 
of Joaquin Miller's Complete Poetical Works, and printed by their 
permission. 



American History. 65 

The good mate said: " Now must we pray, 
For lo ! the very stars are gone. 
Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?" 
" Why, say : ' Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! ' ! 

" My men grow mutinous day by day ; 
My men grow ghastly wan and weak." 
The stout mate thought of home ; a spray 
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
" What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, 
If we sight naught but seas at dawn ? " 
" Why, you shall say at break of day : 
1 Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! ' 5 

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, 
Until at last the blanched mate said : 
" Why, now not even God would know 
Should I and all my men fall dead. 
These very winds forget their way ; 
For God from these dread seas is gone. 
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l; speak and say — " 
He said : " Sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " 

They sailed : they sailed. Then spake the mate : 

"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night, 

He curls his lip, he lies in wait, 

With lifted teeth, as if to bite ! 

Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word : 

What shall we do when hope is gone?" 

The words leapt like a leaping sword : 

" Sail on ! sail on ! sail on ! and on ! " 



66 Speaker and Reader. 

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck, 
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night 
Of all dark nights ! And then a speck — 
A light ! a light ! a light ! a light ! 
It grew ; a starlit flag unfurled ! 
, It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. 
He gained a world ; he gave that world 
Its grandest lesson : " On ! sail on ! " 



9S 



RECEPTION OF COLUMBUS BY THE 
SPANISH COURT AT BARCELONA. 1 

Washington Irving. 

About the middle of April, Columbus arrived at 
Barcelona, where every preparation had been made to 
give him a solemn and magnificent reception. His 
entrance into this noble city has bee±i compared to one 
of those triumphs which the Romans were accustomed 
to decree to conquerors. First, were paraded the 
Indians, painted according to their savage fashion, and 
decorated with their national ornaments of gold. After 
these were borne various kinds of live parrots, together 
with stuffed birds and animals of unknown species, and 
rare plants supposed to be of precious qualities ; while 
great care was taken to make a conspicuous display 

1 From Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Vol. I, pages 
282-285. G. P. Putnam & Son. 






American History. 67 

of Indian coronets, bracelets, and other decorations of 
gold, which might give an idea of the wealth of the 
newly discovered regions. After this followed Colum- 
bus on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of 
Spanish chivalry. The streets were almost impassable 
from the countless multitude ; the windows and balconies 
were crowded with the fair ; the very roofs were cov- 
ered with spectators. It seemed as if the public eye 
could not be sated with gazing on these trophies of an 
unknown world ; or on the remarkable man by whom 
it had been discovered. 

To receive him with suitable pomp and distinction, 
the sovereigns had ordered their throne to be placed in 
public, under a rich canopy of brocade of gold, in a 
vast and splendid saloon. Here the king and queen 
awaited his arrival, seated in state, with the Prince Juan 
beside them, and attended by the dignitaries of their 
court and the principal nobility of Castile, Valencia, 
Catalonia, and Aragon, all impatient to behold the man 
who had conferred so incalculable a benefit upon the 
nation. At length Columbus entered the hall, surrounded 
by a brilliant crowd of cavaliers, among whom, says Las 
Casas, he was conspicuous for his stately and com- 
manding person, which with his countenance, rendered 
venerable by his gray hairs, gave him the august appear- 
ance of a senator of Rome. As Columbus approached, 
the sovereigns rose, as if receiving a person of the 
highest rank. Bending his knees, he offered to kiss 
their hands ; but there was some hesitation on their 
part to permit this act of homage. Raising him in the 
most gracious manner, they ordered him to seat himself 



68 Speaker and Reader. 

in their presence ; a rare honor in this proud and punc- 
tilious court. 

At their request, he now gave an account of the 
most striking events of his voyage, and a description 
of the islands discovered. When he had finished, the 
sovereigns sank on their knees, and raising their clasped 
hands to heaven, their eyes filled with tears of joy and 
gratitude, poured forth thanks and praises to God for 
so great a providence. Such was the solemn and 
pious manner in which the brilliant court of Spain cele- 
brated this sublime event ; offering up a grateful tribute 
of melody and praise, and giving glory to God for the 
discovery of another world. 



COLUMBUS. 

James Montgomery. 

Long lay the ocean-paths from man concealed ; 
Light came from heaven, — the magnet was revealed, 
A surer star to guide the seaman's eye 
Than the pale glory of the northern sky ; 
Alike ordained to shine by night and day, 
Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray ; 
Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll, 
Still with strong impulse turning to the pole, 
True as the sun is to the morning true, 
Though light as film, and trembling as the dew. 



American History. 69 

Then man no longer plied with timid oar 

And failing heart along the windward shore ; 

Broad to the sky he turned his fearless sail, 

Defied the adverse, wooed the favoring gale, 

Bared to the storm his adamantine breast, 

Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest ; 

While, free as clouds the liquid ether sweep, 

His white-winged vessels coursed the unbounded deep ; 

From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam, 

The waves his heritage, the world his home. 

Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand 
Of grasping genius, weighed the sea and land ; 
The floods o'erbalanced : where the tide of light, 
Day after day, rolled down the gulf of night, 
There seemed one waste of waters : long in vain 
His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main ; 
When, sudden as creation burst from naught, 
Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought, 
Light, order, beauty ! While his mind explored 
The unveiling mystery, his heart adored ; 
Where'er sublime imagination trod, 
He heard the voice, he saw the face, of God. 

Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye, 

O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky ; 

In calm magnificence the sun declined, 

And left a paradise of clouds behind ; 

Proud at his feet, with pomp of pearl and gold, 

The billows in a sea of glory rolled. 



jo Speaker and Reader. 

THE MELANCHOLY NIGHT. 1 

(Conquest of 'Mexico », July i, 1520.) 

John Fiske. 

At Cortes's direction Montezuma presented himself 
on the terraced roof and sought to assuage the wrath of 
the people, but now he found that his authority was 
ended. Another now wore the golden beak of the war- 
god. He was no longer general, no longer priest, and 
his person had lost its sacred character. Stones and 
darts were hurled at him ; he was struck down by a 
heavy stone, and died a few days afterward, whether 
from the wound, or from chagrin, or both. Before his 
death the Spaniards made a sortie, and after terrific 
hand-to-hand fighting stormed the great temple which 
overlooked and commanded their own quarters and had 
sadly annoyed them. They flung down the idols among 
the people and burned the accursed shrines. It was on 
the last day of June that Montezuma died, and on the 
evening of the next day, fearing lest his army should be 
blockaded and stormed, Cortes evacuated the city. The 
troops marched through quiet and deserted streets till 
they reached the great causeway leading to Tlacopan. 
Its three draw-bridges had all been destroyed. The 
Spaniards carried a pontoon, but while they were passing 
over the first bridgeway the Indians fell upon them in 
vast numbers, their light canoes swarming on both sides 

1 From The Discovery of America. Vol. IT, pages 286, 287. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 71 

of the narrow road. The terrible night that ensued has 
ever since been known in history as la noche triste. 
Cortes started in the evening with 1250 Spaniards, 6000 
Tlascalans, and 80 horses. Next morning, after reaching 
terra firma, he had 500 Spaniards, 2000 Tlascalans, and 
20 horses. Air his cannon were sunk in the lake, and 40 
Spaniards were in Aztec clutches, to be offered up to 
the war-god. Then Cortes sat down upon a rock and 
buried his face in his hands and wept. Not for one 
moment, however, did he flinch in his purpose of taking 
Mexico. 



% 



SUFFERINGS AND DESTINY OF THE 
PILGRIMS. 1 

Edward Everett. 

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous 
vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with 
the prospects of a future state, and bound across the 
unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand 
misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns 
rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter 
surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the 
sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily 
supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation 
in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a 

1 From " Oration on the First Settlement of New England," Orations 
and Speeches. Vol. I, pages 68, 69. Little, Brown & Co. 



72 Speaker and Reader. 

circuitous route ; and now driven in fury before the 
raging tempest, on the high and giddy wave. The 
awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging ; 
the laboring masts seem straining from their base ; the 
dismal sound of the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as 
it were, madly, from billow to billow ; the ocean breaks 
and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, 
and beats with deadening, shivering weight against the 
staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, 
pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed, 
at last, after a few months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks 
of Plymouth, — weak and weary from the voyage, poorly 
armed, scantily provisioned, without shelter, without 
means, surrounded by hostile tribes. 

Shut now the volume of history and tell me, on any 
principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of 
this handful of adventurers ? Tell me, man of military 
science, in how many months were they all swept off 
by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early 
limits of New England ? Tell me, politician, how long 
did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions 
and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant 
coast ? Student of history, compare for me the baffled 
projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adven- 
tures, of other times, and find the parallel of this ! Was 
it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads 
of women and children ? was it hard labor and spare 
meals ? was it disease ? was it the tomahawk ? was it 
the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, 
and a broken heart, aching, in its last moments, at the 
recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea ? — 



American History. 73 

was it some or all of these united, that hurried this for- 
saken company to their melancholy fate ? And is it 
possible that neither of these causes, that not all com- 
bined, were able to blast this bud of hope ? Is it possible 
that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not 
so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a 
progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion 
so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be 
fulfilled, so glorious ? 



WHERE PLYMOUTH ROCK CROPS OUT. 1 

Wendell Phillips. 

Plymouth Rock underlies all America ; it only crops 
out at Plymouth. It has cropped out a great many 
times in our history. You may recognize it always. 
Old Putnam stood upon it at Bunker Hill when he 
said to the Yankee boys : " Don't fire till you see the 
whites of their eyes." Ingraham had it for ballast 
when he put his little sloop between two Austrian 
frigates, and threatened to blow them out of the water 
if they did not respect the broad eagle of the United 
States, in the case of Koszta. Jefferson had it for a 
writing-desk when he drafted the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the " Statute of Religious Liberty" for 
Virginia. Lovejoy rested his musket upon it when they 
would not let him print at Alton, and he said : " Death, 

1 From Speeches and Lectures. Pages 231, 232. Lee & Shepard. 



74 Speaker and Reader. 

or free speech ! " Ay, sir, the rock cropped out again. 
Garrison had it for an imposing stone when he looked 
in the faces of seventeen millions of angry men and 
printed his sublime pledge, " I will not retreat a single 
inch, and I will be heard." 



% 



LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 
Felicia D. Hemans. 

The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast, 

And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tossed. 

And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes, 

They, the true-hearted, came ; 
Not with the roll of the stirring drums, 

Arid the trumpet that sings of fame ; 

Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear ; — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 



American History. 75 

Amidst the storm they sang, 

And the stars heard, and the sea ; 

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
To the anthem of the free ! 

The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white wave's foam ; 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 

This was their welcome home ! 

There were men with hoary hair 

Amidst that pilgrim band : — 
Why had they come to wither there, 

Away from their childhood's land ? 

There was woman's fearless eye, 

Lit by her deep love's truth ; 
There was manhood's brow serenely high, 

And the fiery heart of youth. 

What sought they thus afar ? — 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas ? the spoils of war ? — 

They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 

Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod ; 
They left unstained what there they found — 

Freedom to worship God. 



# 



j 6 Speaker and Reader. 

MILES STANDISH. 1 
Henry W. Longfellow. 

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe 

interrupting, 
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the 

Captain of Plymouth. 
"Look at these arms," he said, " the warlike weapons 

that hang here 
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or 

inspection ! 
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in 

Flanders ; this breastplate, 
Well I remember the day ! once saved my life in a 

skirmish ; 
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet 
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish 

arcabucero. 
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones 

of Miles Standish 
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the 

Flemish morasses. " 
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up 

from his writing : 
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the 

speed of the bullet ; 
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and 

our weapon ! " 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1893. 



American History. 77 

Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of 

the stripling : 
" See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an 

arsenal hanging ; 
This is because I have done it myself, and not left 

it to others. 
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an 

excellent adage ; 
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and 

your inkhorn. 
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible 

army, 
Twelve men, all equipped having each his rest and 

his match lock, 
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage, 
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my 

soldiers ! " 
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, 

as the sunbeams 
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in 

a moment. 
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain 

continued : 
" Look ! you can see from this window my brazen 

howitzer planted 
High on the roof of the church, a preacher who 

speaks to the purpose, 
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with irresistible 

logic, 
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the hearts of 

the heathen. 



78 Speaker and Reader, 

Now we are ready, I think, for any assault of the 

Indians ; 
Let them come, if they like, and the sooner they try 

it the better, — 
Let them come, if they like, be it sagamore, sachem, 

or pow-wow, 
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or Tokama- 

hamon ! " 

% 



POCAHONTAS. 
George P. Morris. 

Upon the barren sand 

A single captive stood, 
Around him came, with bow and brand, 

The red men of the wood. 
Like him of old, his doom he hears, 

Rock-bound on ocean's rim : — 
The chieftain's daughter knelt in tears, 

And breathed a prayer for him. 

Above his head in air, 

The savage war-club swung ; 
The frantic girl, in wild despair, 

Her arms about him flung. 
Then shook the warriors of the shade, 

Like leaves on aspen-limb, 
Subdued by that heroic maid 

Who breathed a prayer for him. 



American History. 79 

"Unbind him!" gasped the chief, 

"It is your king's decree!" 
He kissed away her tears of grief, 

And set the captive free. 
'Tis ever thus, when in life's storm 

Hope's star to man grows dim, 
An angel kneels in woman's form, 

And breathes a prayer for him. 

THE FALL OF QUEBEC. 1 

Francis Parkman. 

It w r as towards ten o'clock when, from the high 
ground on the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis 
was near. The order was given to charge. Then over 
the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce 
yell of the Highland slogan. Some of the corps pushed 
forward with the bayonet ; some advanced firing. The 
clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen 
and swift as bloodhounds. At the English right, though 
the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was 
still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the 
bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour 
or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the 
head of the Louisburg grenadiers. A shot shattered 

1 From France and England in North America, Part VII. — Mo7it- 
calm and Wolfe. Vol. II, pages 295-297. Little, Brown & Co. Copy- 
right, 1884, by Francis Parkman. 



80 Speaker and Reader. 

his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and 
kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced, 
when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and 
sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, 
one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a 
private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to 
join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He 
begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked 
if he would have a surgeon. ''There's no need," he 
answered; "it's all over with me." A moment after, 
one of them cried out : " They run ; see how they run ! " 
" Who run ? " Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from 
sleep. "The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way every- 
where ! " " Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned 
the dying man; "tell him to march Webb's regiment 
down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the 
bridge.' ' Then, turning on his side, he murmured, " Now, 
God be praised, I will die in peace ! " and in a few moments 
his gallant soul had fled. 



% 



GENERAL WOLFE'S ADDRESS TO HIS 
ARMY. 

James Wolfe. 

I congratulate you, my brave countrymen and fel- 
low soldiers, on the spirit and success with which you 
have executed this important part of our enterprise. The 
formidable Heights of Abraham are now surmounted ; 



American History. 81 

and the city of Quebec, the object of all our toils, now 
stands in full view before us. 

A perfidious enemy, who have dared to exasperate you 
by their cruelties, but not to oppose you on equal ground, 
are now constrained to face you on the open plain, with- 
out ramparts or intrenchments to shelter them. 

You know too well the forces which compose their 
army to dread their superior numbers. A few regular 
troops from Old France, weakened by hunger and sick- 
ness, who, when fresh, were unable to withstand British 
soldiers, are their general's chief dependence. 

Those numerous companies of Canadians — insolent, 
mutinous, unsteady and ill-disciplined — have exercised 
his utmost skill to keep them together to this time ; 
and as soon as their irregular ardor is damped by one 
firm fire, they will instantly turn their backs and give 
you no further trouble but in the pursuit. 

As for those savage tribes of Indians, whose horrid 
yells in the forest have struck many a bold heart with 
affright, terrible as they are with the tomahawk and 
scalping knife to a flying and prostrate foe, you have 
experienced how little their ferocity is to be dreaded by 
resolute men upon fair and open ground. You can 
now only consider them as the just objects of a severe 
revenge for the unhappy fate of many slaughtered coun- 
trymen. 

This day puts it into your power to terminate the 
fatigues of a siege which has so long employed your 
courage and patience. Possessed with a full confidence 
of the certain success which British valor must gain 
over such enemies, I have led you up these steep and 



82 Speaker and Reader. 

dangerous rocks, only solicitous to show you the foe 
within your reach. 

The impossibility of a retreat makes no difference in the 
situation of men resolved to conquer or die ; and, believe 
me, my friends, if your conquest could be bought with 
the blood of your general, he would most cheerfully resign 
a life which he has long devoted to his country. 



SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 1 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

Delusions of the days that once have been, 
Witchcraft and wonders of the world unseen, 
Phantoms of air, and necromantic arts 
That crushed the weak and awed the stoutest hearts, — 
These are our theme to-night ; and vaguely here, 
Through the dim mists that crowd the atmosphere, 
We draw the outlines of weird figures cast 
In shadow on the background of the Past. 

Who would believe that in the quiet town 
Of Salem, and amid the woods that crown 
The neighboring hillsides, and the sunny farms 
That fold it safe in their paternal arms, — 
Who would believe that in those peaceful streets, 
Where the great elms shut out the summer heats, 
Where quiet reigns, and breathes through brain and 

breast 
The benediction of unbroken rest, — 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 8; 

Who would believe such deeds could find a place 
As these whose tragic history we retrace ? 

'Twas but a village then: the goodman ploughed 
His ample acres under sun or cloud ; 
The goodwife at her doorstep sat and spun, 
And gossiped with her neighbors in the sun ; 
The only men of dignity and state 
Were then the Minister and the Magistrate, 
Who ruled their little realm with iron rod, 
Less in the love than in the fear of God ; 
And who believed devoutly in the Powers 
Of Darkness, working in this w r orld of ours, 
In spells of Witchcraft, incantations dread, 
And shrouded apparitions of the dead. 

Upon this simple folk "with fire and flame," 
Saith the old Chronicle, " the Devil came ; 
Scattering his firebrands and his poisonous darts, 
To set on fire of Hell all tongues and hearts ! 
And 't is no wonder ; for, with all his host, 
There most he rages where he hateth most, 
And is most hated ; so on us he brings 
All these stupendous and portentous things!" 

Something of this our scene to-night will show ; 
And ye who listen to the tale of woe, 
Be not too swift in casting the first stone, 
Nor think New England bears the guilt alone. 
This sudden burst of wickedness and crime 
Was but the common madness of the time, 
When in all lands, that lie within the sound 
Of Sabbath bells, a witch was burned or drowned, 



84 Speaker and Reader. 

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY. 1 

John Fiske. 

On the morning of Thursday, December 16, the as- 
sembly which was gathered in the Old South Meeting- 
House, and in the streets about it, numbered more than 
seven thousand people. It was to be one of the most 
momentous days in the history of the world. But 
among the thousands present at the town meeting, it is 
probable that very few knew just what it was designed to 
do. At five in the afternoon it was unanimously voted 
that, come what would, the tea should not be landed. It 
had now grown dark, and the church was dimly lighted 
with candles. Determined not to act until the last legal 
method of relief should have been tried and found want- 
ing, the great assembly was still waiting quietly in and 
about the church when, an hour after nightfall, Rotch 
returned from Milton with the governor's refusal. Then, 
amid profound stillness, Samuel Adams arose and said, 
quietly but distinctly: "This meeting can do nothing 
more to save the country." It was the declaration of 
war ; the law had shown itself unequal to the occasion, 
and nothing now remained but a direct appeal to force. 
Scarcely had the watchword left his mouth when a war- 
whoop answered from outside the door, and fifty men in 
the guise of Mohawk Indians passed quickly by the en- 
trance and hastened to Griffin's wharf. Before the nine 
o'clock bell rang, the three hundred and forty-two chests 

1 From The American Revolution. Vol. I, pages 8S-90. Copyright 
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 85 

of tea laden upon the three ships had been cut open and 
their contents emptied into the sea. Not a person was 
harmed ; no other property was injured ; and the vast 
crowd, looking upon the scene from the wharf in the 
clear frosty moonlight, was so still that the click of 
the hatchets could be distinctly heard. Next morning 
the salted tea, as driven by wind and wave, lay in long 
rows on Dorchester beach, while Paul Revere, booted 
and spurred, was riding post-haste to Philadelphia, with 
the glorious news that Boston had at last thrown down 
the gauntlet for the king of England to pick up. 



GENERAL GAGE AND THE BOSTON BOYS. 1 

Thomas W. Higginson. 

In Boston, at the beginning of the Revolution, the 
British troops made themselves very unpopular. There 
was soon a quarrel between them and the boys ; for the 
soldiers used to beat down the snow-hills that the boys 
had heaped up on the Common. After appealing in vain 
to the captain, the boys finally went to Governor Gage 
and complained. " What ! " he said, "have your fathers 
been teaching you rebellion, and sent you here to exhibit 
it?" — " Nobody sent us, sir," said one of the boys. 
" We have never injured nor insulted your troops ; but 
they have trodden down our snow-hills and broken the 

1 From Yoting Folks' 1 History of the United States. Page 166. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



86 Speaker and Reader. 

ice on our skating-ground. We complained, and they 
called us ' young rebels,' and told us to help ourselves 
if we could. We told the captains of this, and they 
laughed at us. Yesterday our works were destroyed 
the third time; and we will bear it no longer." The 
governor said, with surprise, to one of his officers : " The 
very children here draw in a love of liberty with the air 
they breathe." To the boys he said : " You may go, my 
brave boys, and be assured, if my troops trouble you 
again, they shall be punished/ ' 



FRANKLIN'S FIRST DAY IN PHILADELPHIA. 1 

I have been the more particular in this description 
of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into 
that city, that you may in your mind compare such 
unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made 
there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes 
being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my 
journey ; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and 
stockings, and I knew no soul, nor where to look for 
lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and 
want of rest ; I was very hungry, and my whole stock 
of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling 
in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for 
my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my 
rowing ; but I insisted on their taking it ; a man being 
sometimes more generous when he has but a little 

1 From The Autobiogi-aphy of Benjamin Franklin. 



American History. 87 

money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear 
of being thought to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near 
the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made 
many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, 
I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in 
Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as 
we had in Boston ; but they, it seems, were not made in 
Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and 
was told they had none such. So not considering or 
knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheap- 
ness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me 
threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accord- 
ingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the 
quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pock- 
ets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating 
the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as 
Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Reed, my 
future wife's father ; when she, standing at the door, saw 
me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most 
awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and 
went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, 
eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found 
myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I 
came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water ; 
and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other 
two to a woman and her child that came down the river 
in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther. 

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which 
by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who 
were all walking the same way. I joined them, and 



88 Speaker and Reader. 

thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the 
Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, 
and, after looking round a while and hearing nothing 
said, being very drowsy through labor and want of rest 
the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so 
till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough 
to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was 
in, or slept in, in Philadelphia. 

SPEECH IN VIRGINIA CONVENTION 
OF DELEGATES. 1 

{March 23, 1775 '.) 

Patrick Henry. 

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause 
of liberty, and in such a country as that which we 
possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy 
can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our 
battles alone. There is a just God who presides over 
the destinies of nations ; and who will raise up friends 
to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to 
the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the 
brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were 
base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from 
the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and 
slavery ! Our chains are forged ; their clanking may be 

1 From Life, Correspondence and Speeches. William Wirt Henry. 
Pages 265, 266. Charles Scribner's Sons. 



American History. 89 

heard on the plains of Boston ! The war is inevitable 
— and let it come ! ! I repeat it, sir, let it come ! ! ! 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
may cry, peace, peace, — but there is no peace. The 
war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from 
the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding 
arms ! Our brethren are already in the field ! why 
stand we here idle ? what is it that gentlemen wish ? 
what would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so 
sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and 
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what 
cause others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, 
or give me death ! 

% 

THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION. 1 

George Lippard. 

It is a cloudless summer day ; a clear blue sky arches 
and expands above a quaint edifice, rising among the 
giant trees in the center of a wide city. That edifice is 
built of plain red brick, with heavy window frames, and 
a massive hall door. 

Such is the state house of Philadelphia, in the year 
of our Lord 1776. 

In yonder wooden steeple, which crowns the summit 
of that red brick state house, stands an old man with 
snow-white hair and sunburnt face. He is clad in 
humble attire, yet his eye gleams, as it is fixed on the 

1 From Washington and his Generals. Pages 391, 392. T. B. 
Peterson & Co, 



90 Speaker and Reader. 

ponderous outline of the bell suspended in the steeple 
there. By his side, gazing into his sunburnt face in 
wonder, stands a flaxen-haired boy with laughing eyes 
of summer blue. The old man ponders for a moment 
upon the strange words written upon the bell, then, 
gathering the boy in his arms, he speaks : " Look here, 
my child. Will you do this old man a kindness ? Then 
hasten down the stairs, and wait in the hall below till 
a man gives you a message for me ; when he gives you 
that word, run out into the street and shout it up to me. 
Do you mind ? " The boy sprang from the old man's 
arms, and threaded his way down the dark stairs. 

Many minutes passed. The old bell-keeper was alone. 
"Ah," groaned the old man, " he has forgotten me." 
As the word was upon his lips a merry, ringing laugh 
broke on his ear. And there, among the crowd on the 
pavement, • stood the blue-eyed boy, clapping his tiny 
hands while the breeze blew his flaxen hair all about his 
face, and, swelling his little chest, he raised himself on 
tiptoe, and shouted the single word, " Ring ! " 

Do you see that old man's eye fire ? Do you see that 
arm so suddenly bared to the shoulder ? Do you see 
that withered hand grasping the iron tongue of the bell ? 
That old man is young again. His veins are filling with 
a new life. Backward and forward, with sturdy strokes, 
he swings the tongue. The bell peals out ; the crowds 
in the street hear it, and burst forth in one long shout. 
Old Delaware hears it, and gives it back on the cheers of 
her thousand sailors. The city hears it, and starts up, 
from desk and workshop, as if an earthquake had spoken. 

% 



American History, 91 

INDEPENDENCE BELL. 

Anonymous. 

There was tumult in the city, 

In the quaint old Quaker town, 
And the streets were rife with people 

Pacing restless up and down, — 
People gathering at corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 
And the sweat stood on their temples 

With the earnestness of speech. 

As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, 
So they beat against the State-House, 

So they surged against the door ; 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

Was all turbulent with sound. 

"Will they do it?" "Dare they do it?" 

" Who is speaking ? " " What 's the news ? " 
"What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?" 

"Oh, God grant they w r on't refuse!" 
"Make some way, there!" "Let me nearer!" 

" I am stifling ! " " Stifle then ! 
When a nation's life 's at hazard, 

We've no time to think of men!" 



92 Speaker and Reader. 

So they beat against the portal, 

Man and woman, maid and child ; 
And the July sun in heaven 

On the scene looked down and smiled : 
The same sun that saw the Spartan 

Shed his patriot blood in vain, 
Now beheld the soul of freedom, 

All un conquered, rise again. 

See ! see ! The dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line, 
As the boy beside the portal 

Looks forth to give the sign ! 
With his little hands uplifted, 

Breezes dallying with his hair, 
Hark ! with deep, clear intonation, 

Breaks his young voice on the air. 

Hushed the people's swelling murmur, 

List the boy's exultant cry ! 
"Ring-!" he shouts, "Ring! grandpa, 

Ring! oh, ring for Liberty!" 
Quickly at the given signal 

The old bell-man lifts his hand, 
Forth he sends the good news, making 

Iron music through the land. 

How they shouted ! What rejoicing ! 

How the old bell shook the air, 
Till the clang of freedom ruffled 

The calmly gliding Delaware ! 



American History. 93 

How the bonfires and the torches 

Lighted up the night's repose, 
And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix, 

Our glorious Liberty arose ! 

That old State-House bell is silent, 

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue ; 
But the spirit it awakened 

Still is living, — ever young ; 
And when we greet the smiling sunlight 

On the Fourth of each July, 
We will ne'er forget the bell-man 

Who, betwixt the earth and sky, 
Rung out, loudly, " Independence " ; 

Which, please God, shall never die ! 

% 

THE LIBERTY BELL. 1 

Elbridge S. Brooks. 

I. — Philadelphia, 1776. 

Squarely prim and stoutly built, 
Free from glitter and from gilt, 
Plain, — from lintel up to roof-tree and to belfry bare 
and brown — 
Stands the Hall that hot July, 
While the folk throng anxious by, 

1 From Heroic Happenings Told in Verse and Story. Pages 147-150. 
Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



94 Speaker and Reader. 

Where the Continental Congress meets within the 
Quaker town. 
Hark ! a stir, a sudden shout, 
And a boy comes rushing out, 
Signaling to where his grandsire in the belfry, 
waiting, stands : — 
"Ring!" he cries; "the deed is done! 
Ring ! they 've signed, and freedom 's won ! " 
And the ringer grasps the bell-rope with his strong 
and sturdy hands ; 
While the Bell with joyous note 
Clanging from its brazen throat, 
Rings the tidings, all-exultant, — peals the news to 
shore and sea : 
u Man is man — a slave no longer; 
Truth and Right than Might are stronger. 
Praise to God ! We 're free ; we 're free ! 

II. — New Orleans, 1885. 

Triumph of the builder's art, 
Tower and turret spring and start 
As if reared by mighty genii for some prince of 
Eastern land ; 
Where the Southern river flows, 
And eternal summer glows, — 
Dedicate to labor's grandeur, fair and vast the arches 
stand. 
And, enshrined in royal guise, 
Flower-bedeck'd 'neath sunny skies ; 
Old and time-stained, cracked and voiceless, but where 
all may see it well ; 



American History. 95 

Circled by the wealth and power 

Of the great world's triumph-hour, — 
Sacred to the cause of freedom, on its dais rests the 
Bell. 

And the children thronging near, 

Yet again the story hear 
Of the bell that rang the message, pealing out to land 
and sea : 

"Man is man — a slave no longer ; 

Truth and Right than Might are stronger. 
Praise to God! We're free ; we're free f" 

III. 

Prize the glorious relic then, 
With its hundred years and ten, 
By the Past a priceless heirloom to the Future handed 
down. 
Still its stirring story tell, 
Till the children know it well, — 
From the joyous Southern city to the Northern Quaker 
town. 
Time that heals all wounds and scars, 
Time that ends all strifes and wars, 
Time that turns all pains to pleasures, and can make 
the cannon dumb, 
Still shall join in firmer grasp, 
Still shall knit in friendlier clasp 
North and South-land in the glory of the ages yet to 
come. 
And, though voiceless, still the Bell 
Shall its glorious message tell, 



96 Speaker and Reader. 

Pealing loud o'er all the Nation, lake to gulf and sea 
to sea: 

"Man is man — a slave no longer; 

Truth and Right than Might are stronger. 
Praise to God ! We We free ; we We free ! " 



% 



SPEECH AGAINST THE EMPLOYMENT OF 
INDIANS IN THE WAR WITH AMERICA. 1 

{Nov. i8, 1777.) 

William Pitt. 

You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot con- 
quer America. Your armies last war effected every- 
thing that could be effected ; and what was it ? It cost 
a numerous army, under the command of a most able 
general, now a noble Lord in this house, a long and 
laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen 
from French America. My Lords, you cannot conquer 
America. What is your present situation there ? We 
do not know the worst ; but we know, that in three 
campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. 
Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the North- 
ern force the best appointed army that ever took the 
field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired 
from the American lines ; he was obliged to relinquish 
his attempt, and with great delay and danger to adopt 

1 From Life of Chatham, J. Almon. Vol. II, pages 303-305. 



American History, 97 

a new and distant plan of operations. We shall soon 
know, and in any event have reason to lament, what 
may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, 
my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. — You may swell 
every expense, and every effort, still more extrava- 
gantly ; pile and accumulate every assistance you can 
buy or borrow ; traffic and barter with every little piti- 
ful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to 
the shambles of a foreign prince ; your efforts are for- 
ever vain and impotent — doubly so from this mercenary 
aid on which you rely ; for it irritates to an incurable 
resentment the minds of your enemies — to overrun 
them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder ; 
devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity 
of hireling cruelty ! If I were an American, as I am 
an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my 
country, I never would lay down my arms — never — 
never — never. 

Your own army is infected with the contagion of 
these illiberal allies. The spirit of plunder and of rapine 
is gone forth among them. I know it — and notwith- 
standing what the noble Earl, who moved the address, 
has given as his opinion of our American army, I know 
from authentic information, and the most experienced 
officers, that our discipline is deeply wounded. Whilst 
this is notoriously our sinking situation, America grows 
and flourishes ; whilst our strength and discipline are 
lowered, theirs are rising and improving. 

But, my Lords, who is the man, that in addition to 
these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared to 
authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and 



98 Speaker and Reader. 

scalping-knife of the savage ? To call into civilized 
alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods ; to 
delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of dis- 
puted rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous 
war against our brethren ? My Lords, these enormities 
cry aloud for redress and punishment. 

SAMUEL ADAMS. 1 

George William Curtis. 

Samuel Adams was the New Englander in whom 
the Revolution was most fully embodied. Until 1768 
he did not despair of a peaceful settlement of the 
quarrel with Great Britain. But when in May of that 
year, the British frigate Romney sailed into Boston 
Harbor, and her shotted guns were trained upon the 
town, he saw that the question was changed. From 
that moment he knew that America must be free or 
slave ; and the unceasing effort of his life, by day and 
night, with tongue and pen, was to nerve his fellow- 
colonists to strike when the hour should come. On 
that gray December evening, two years later, when he 
rose in the Old South, and in a clear, calm voice said : 
" This meeting can do nothing more to save the coun- 
try," and so gave the word for the march to the tea- 
ships, he was ready to throw the tea overboard, because 

1 From Orations and Addresses. Vol. Ill, pages 92-95. Copyright 
by Harper & Brothers. 



American History, 99 

he was ready to throw overboard the king and Parlia- 
ment of England. 

During the ten years from the passage of the Stamp 
Act to the day of Lexington and Concord, this poor 
man, in an obscure provincial town beyond the sea, 
was engaged with the British ministry in one of the 
mightiest contests that history records. Not a word 
in Parliament that he did not hear, not an act in the 
cabinet that he did not see. With brain and heart and 
conscience all alive, he opposed every hostile order in 
council with a British precedent. Intrenched in his 
own honesty, the king's gold could not buy him ; en- 
shrined in the love of his fellow-citizens, the king's 
writ could not take him ; and when on the morning of 
the nineteenth of April, 1776, the king's troops marched 
to seize him, his sublime faith saw beyond the clouds 
of the moment the rising sun of the America that we 
behold ; and careless of himself, mindful only of his 
country, he exult ingly exclaimed : " Oh, what a glorious 
morning ! " 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1 

Elbridge S. Brooks. 

Franklin's life is full of charming stories which 
all young Americans should know — how he peddled 
ballads in Boston, and stood, the guest of kings, in 

1 From Historic Americans. Pages 30-32. Copyright by Thomas 
Y. Crowell & Co. 

LofC. 



ioo Speaker and Reader. 

Europe ; how he worked his passage as a stowaway to 
Philadelphia, and rode in the queen's own litter in 
France ; how he walked the streets of Philadelphia, 
homeless and unknown, with three penny rolls for his 
breakfast, and dined at the tables of princes, and re- 
ceived his friends in a palace ; how he raised a kite 
from a cow-shed, and was showered with all the high 
degrees the colleges of the world could give ; how he 
was duped by a false friend as a boy, and became the 
friend of all humanity as a man ; how he was made 
Major-General Franklin, only to resign because, as he 
said, he was no soldier, and yet helped to organize the 
army that stood before the trained troops of England 
and Germany. 

This poor Boston boy, with scarcely a day's school- 
ing, became master of six languages and never stopped 
studying ; this neglected apprentice tamed the lightning, 
made his name famous, received degrees and diplomas 
from colleges in both hemispheres, and became forever 
remembered as "Doctor Franklin," philosopher, patriot, 
scientist, philanthropist, and statesman. 

Self-made, self-taught, self -reared, the candle-maker's 
son gave light to all the world ; the street ballad-seller 
set all men singing of liberty ; the runaway apprentice 
became the most sought-after man of two continents, 
and brought his native land to praise and honor him. 

He built America, — for what our Republic is to- 
day is largely due to the prudence, the forethought, 
the statesmanship, the enterprise, the wisdom, and 
the ability of Benjamin Franklin. He belongs to the 
world, but especially does he belong to America. As 



American History. 101 

the nations honored him while living, so the Republic 
glorifies him when dead, and has enshrined him in the 
choicest of its niches, — the one he regarded as the 
loftiest, — the hearts of the common people, from whom 
he had sprung ; and in their hearts Franklin will live 
forever. 



THE TOWN MEETING. 1 

George William Curtis. 

When the Revolution began, of the eight millions of 
people then living in Old England only one hundred 
and sixty thousand were voters, while in New England 
the great mass of free male adults were electors — and 
they had been so from the landing at Plymouth. Here 
in the wilderness the settlers were forced to govern 
themselves. They could not constantly refer and ap- 
peal to another authority twenty miles away through 
the woods. Every day brought its duty, that must be 
done before sunset. Roads must be made, schools 
built, young men trained to arms against the savage 
and the wild-cat, taxes must be levied and collected 
for all common purposes, preaching must be main- 
tained ; and who could know the time, the means, and 
the necessity so well as the community itself ? Thus 
each town was a small but perfect republic, as solitary 

1 From Orations and Addresses. Vol. Ill, page 91. Copyright by 
Harper & Brothers. 



102 Speaker and Reader. 

and secluded in the New England wilderness as the 
Swiss cantons among the Alps. No other practicable 
human institution has been devised or conceived to 
secure the just ends of local government so felicitous 
as the town meeting. It brought together the rich and 
the poor, the good and the bad, and gave character, 
eloquence, and natural leadership full and free play. It 
enabled superior experience and sagacity to govern ; 
and virtue and intelligence alone are rulers by divine 
right. 

% 



DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVELING IN 1783. 1 

John Fiske. 

At the time of our Revolution the difficulties of 
traveling formed an important social obstacle to the 
union of the states. In our time the persons who pass 
in a single day between New York and Boston by six 
or seven distinct lines of railroad and steamboat are 
numbered by thousands. In 1783, two stage-coaches 
were enough for all the travelers, and nearly all the 
freight besides that went between these two cities, 
except such large freight as went by sea around Cape 
Cod. The journey began at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. Horses were changed every twenty miles, and, if 
the roads were in good condition, some forty miles 

1 From The Critical Period of American History. Pages 62, 63. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History, 103 

would be made by ten o'clock in the evening. In bad 
weather, when the passengers had to get down and lift 
the clumsy wheels out of deep ruts, the progress was 
much slower. The loss of life from accidents, in pro- 
portion to the number of travelers, was much greater 
than it has ever been on the railway. Broad rivers like 
the Connecticut and Housatonic had no bridges. To 
drive across them in winter, when they were solidly 
frozen over, was easy ; and in pleasant summer weather 
to cross in a rowboat was not a dangerous undertaking. 
But squalls at some seasons and floating ice at others 
were things to be feared. More than one instance is 
recorded where boats were crushed and passengers 
drowned, or saved only by scrambling upon ice floes. 
After a week or ten days of discomfort and danger the 
jolted and jaded traveler reached New York. Such 
was a journey in the most highly civilized part of the 
United States. The case was still worse in the South, 
and it was not so very much better in England and 
France. In one respect the traveler in the United 
States fared better than the traveler in Europe ; there 
was less danger from highwaymen. 

Such being the difficulty of traveling, people never 
made long journeys save for very important reasons. 
Except in the case of the soldiers, most people lived 
and died without ever having seen any state but their 
own. 

% 



104 Speaker and Reader, 

WASHINGTON'S TRIUMPHAL JOURNEY TO 
NEW YORK. 1 

John Fiske. 

On the 14th of April Washington was informed of 
his election, and on the next day but one he bid adieu 
again to his beloved home at Mount Vernon. The 
position to which he was summoned was one of unpar- 
alleled splendor — how splendid we can now realize 
much better than he, and our grandchildren will 
realize it better than we — the position of first ruler 
of what was soon to become at once the strongest and 
the most peace-loving people upon the face of the 
earth. As he journeyed toward New York his thoughts 
must have been busy with the arduous problems of 
the time. His meditations on this journey we may 
well believe to have been solemn and anxious enough. 
But if he could gather added courage from the often- 
declared trust of his fellow countrymen, there was no 
lack of such comfort for him. At every town through 
which he passed fresh evidences of it were gathered, 
but at one point on the route his strong nature was 
especially wrought upon. At Trenton, as he crossed 
the bridge over the Assunpink Creek, where twelve 
years ago, at the darkest moment of the Revolution, 
he had outwitted Cornwallis in the most skillful of 
stratagems, and turned threatening defeat into glorious 
victory, — at this spot, so fraught with thrilling associ- 

1 From The Critical Period of American History. Pages 373, 374. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 105 

ations, he was met by a party of maidens dressed in 
white, who strewed his path with sweet spring flowers, 
while triumphal arches in softest green bore inscrip- 
tions declaring that he who had watched over the 
safety of the mothers could well be trusted to protect 
the daughters. 

% 



WASHINGTON'S HOME. 1 

Edward Everett. 

There is a modest private mansion on the bank of 
the Potomac, the abode of George Washington and 
Martha his beloved wife. It boasts no spacious portal 
nor gorgeous colonnade, nor mossy elevation, nor storied 
tower. The porter's lodge at Blenheim Castle, nay, the 
marble dog-kennels were not built for the entire cost of 
Mount Vernon. No arch nor column in courtly English 
or courtlier Latin sets forth the deeds and the worth of 
the Father of his Country ; he needs them not ; the 
unwritten benedictions of millions cover all the walls. 
No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the 
morning or evening beam ; but the love and gratitude 
of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. 
From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid 
and unselfish warrior, — the magistrate who knew no 
glory but his country's good ; to that he returned hap- 
piest when his work was done. There he lived in noble 

1 From Orations and Speeches. Vol. IV, pages 44, 45. 



io6 Speaker and Reader, 

simplicity ; there he died in glory and peace. While 
it stands, the latest generation of the grateful chil- 
dren of America will make this pilgrimage to it as to 
a shrine ; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the 
memory and the name of Washington shall shed an 
eternal glory on the spot. 

% 

THE INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 1 

John Fiske. 

On the 30th came the inauguration. It was one of 
those magnificent days of clearest sunshine that some- 
times make one feel in April as if summer had come. 
At noon on that day Washington went from his lodg- 
ings, attended by a military escort, to Federal Hall, at 
the corner of Wall and Nassau streets, where his statue 
has lately been erected. The city was ablaze with 
excitement. A sea of upturned eager faces surrounded 
the spot, and as the hero appeared thousands of cocked 
hats were waved, while ladies fluttered their white hand- 
kerchiefs. Washington came forth clad in a suit of 
dark brown cloth of American make, with white silk 
hose and shoes decorated with silver buckles, while at 
his side hung a dress sword. For a moment all were 
hushed in deepest silence, while the Secretary of the 
Senate held forth the Bible upon a velvet cushion, and 

1 From The Critical Pei'iod of American History. Pages 374, 375. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 107 

Chancellor Livingston administered the oath of office. 
Then, before Washington had as yet raised his head, 
Livingston shouted — and from all the vast company 
came answering shouts — " Long live George Washing- 
ton, President of the United States." 

% 

WASHINGTON AT THE SIEGE OF 
YORKTOWN. 1 

WashinCxTon Irving. 

About eight o'clock in the evening rockets were 
sent up as signals for the simultaneous attacks. Wash- 
ington was an intensely excited spectator of these 
assaults, on the result of which so much depended. 
He had dismounted, given his horse to a servant, and 
taken his stand in the grand battery with Generals 
Knox and Lincoln and their staffs. The risk he ran 
of a chance shot, while watching the attack through an 
embrasure, made those about him uneasy. One of his 
aides-de-camp ventured to observe that the situation 
was very much exposed. "If you think so," replied he 
gravely, "you are at liberty to step back." 

Shortly afterwards a musket ball struck the cannon 
in the embrasure, rolled along it and fell at his feet. 
General Knox grasped his arm. "My dear general," 
exclaimed he, " we can't spare you yet. " It is a spent 
ball," replied Washington quietly ; "no harm is done." 

1 From Life of Washington. Vol. IV, pages 375-378- G. R 
Putnam & Co. 



108 Speaker and Header. 

When all was over and the redoubts were taken, he 
drew a long breath, and turning to Knox observed, 
" The work is done, and well done ! " 



% 

WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 1 
George William Curtis. 

To lead a people in revolution wisely and success- 
fully, without ambition and without a crime, demands 
indeed lofty genius and unbending virtue. But to 
build their State amid the angry conflict of passion and 
prejudice, to peacefully inaugurate a complete and satis- 
factory government — this is the greatest service that 
a man can render to mankind. But this also is the 
glory of Washington. 

With the sure sagacity of a leader of men, he selected 
at once for the three highest stations the three chief 
Americans. Hamilton was the head, Jefferson was the 
heart, and John Jay was the conscience of his adminis- 
tration. Washington's just and serene ascendency was 
the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers 
were fused ; and nothing less than that ascendency 
could have ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm 
that burst around him. Party spirit blazed into fury. 
John Jay was hung in effigy ; Hamilton was stoned ; 
insurrection raised its head in the West ; Washington 

1 From Orations and Addresses. Vol. Ill, pages 185-188. Copy- 
right by Harper & Brothers. 



American History. 109 

himself was denounced. But the great soul was undis- 
mayed. Without a beacon, without a chart, but with 
unwavering eye and steady hand, he guided his country 
safe through darkness and through storm. He held his 
steadfast way, like the sun across the firmament, giving 
life and health and strength to the new nation ; and 
upon a searching survey of his administration, there is 
no great act which his country would annul ; no word 
spoken, no line written, no deed done by him, which 
justice would reverse or wisdom deplore. 



WASHINGTON'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE 
AND MILITARY CAPACITY. 1 

Edward Everett. 

General Washington's personal appearance was in 
harmony with his character ; it was a model of manly 
strength and beauty. He was about six feet two inches 
in height, and his person well proportioned, — in the ear- 
lier part of life rather spare, and never too stout for active 
and graceful movement. The complexion inclined to 
the florid ; the eyes were blue and remarkably far apart ; 
a profusion of brown hair was drawn back from the fore- 
head, highly powdered, according to the fashion of the 
day, and gathered in a bag behind. He was scrupu- 
lously neat in his dress, and while in camp, though he 
habitually left his tent at sunrise, he was usually dressed 

1 From The Life of Washington. Pages 258, 259, 266, 267. Shel- 
don & Co. 



1 10 Speaker and Reader. 

for the day. He had great strength of arm, and skill 
and grace as a horseman. His power of endurance was 
great, and there were occasions, as at the retreat from 
Long Island and the battle of Princeton, when he was 
scarcely out of his saddle for two days. 

No one has ever denied to Washington the possession 
of the highest degree of physical and moral courage ; no 
one has ever accused him of missing an opportunity to 
strike a bold blow ; no one has pointed out a want of 
vigor in the moment of action, or of forethought in the 
plans of his campaigns ; in short, no one has alleged 
a fact from which it can be made even probable that 
Napoleon or Caesar, working with his means and on his 
field of action, could have wrought out greater or better 
results than he did, or that, if he had been placed on a 
field of action and with a command of means like theirs, 
he would have shown himself unequal to the position. 

THE CONCORD FIGHT. 1 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept ; 
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History, 1 1 1 

And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 

We set to-day a votive stone ; 
That memory may their deed redeem, 

When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 

The shaft we raise to them and Thee. 



WARREN'S ADDRESS. 

John Pierpont. 

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves! 
Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
Will ye look for greener graves ? 

Hope ye mercy still ? 
What's the mercy despots feel? 
Hear it in that battle peal ! 
Read it on yon bristling steel ! 

Ask it, — ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
Will ye to your homes retire ? 
Look behind you ! — they 're afire ! 
And, before vou, see 



1 1 2 Speaker and Reader. 

Who have done it ! From the vale 
On they come ! — and will ye quail ? 
Leaden rain and iron hail 
Let their welcome be ! 

In the God of battles trust ! 

Die we may, — and die we must ; 

But, oh, where can dust to dust 

Be consign'd so well, 
As where Heaven its dews shall shed 
On the martyr' d patriot's bed, 
And the rocks shall raise their head 

Of his deeds to tell? 

% 

LEXINGTON. 1 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, 

Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, 
When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, 
Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. 

Waving her golden veil 

Over the silent dale, 
Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; 

Hushed was his parting sigh, 

While from his noble eye 
Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. 

1 From Complete Poetical Works. Pages 28, 29. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History, 1 1 3 

On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing 

Calmly the first-born of glory have met ; 
Hark ! the death-volley around them is ringing ! 

Look ! with their life-blood the young grass is wet ! 

Faint is the feeble breath, 

Murmuring low in death, 
"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died"; 

Nerveless the iron hand, 

Raised for its native land, 
Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. 

Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, 

From their far hamlets the yeomanry come ; 
As through the storm-cloud the thunder-burst rolling, 
Circles the beat of the mustering drum. 

Fast on the soldier's path 

Darken the waves of wrath, — 
Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall ; 

Red glares the musket's flash, 

Sharp rings the rifle's crash, 
Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. 

Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, 

Never to shadow his cold brow again ; 
Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, 
Reeking and panting he droops on the rein ; 

Pale is the lip of scorn, 

Voiceless the trumpet horn, 
Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high ; 

Many a belted breast 

Low on the turf shall rest 
Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. 



1 14 Speaker and Reader. 

Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, 

Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, 
Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, 
Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale ; 

Far as the tempest thrills 

Over the darkened hills, 
Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, 

Roused by the tyrant band, 

Woke all the mighty land, 
Girded for battle, from mountain to main. 

Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying ! 
Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, 
While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying 

Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. 
Borne on her Northern pine, 
Long o'er the foaming brine 
Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun ; 
Heaven keep her ever free, 
Wide as o'er land and sea 
Floats the fair emblem her heroes 'have won ! 

% 

SONG OF MARION'S MEN. 
William Cullen Bryant. 

Our band is few, but true and tried, 

Our leader frank and bold ; 
The British soldier trembles 

When Marion's name is told. 



American History. 115 

Our fortress is the good greenwood, 

Our tent the cypress tree ; 
We know the forest round us, 

As seamen know the sea ; 
We know its walls of thorny vines, 

Its glades of reedy grass, 
Its safe and silent islands 

Within the dark morass. 



Woe to the English soldiery 

That little dread us near ! 
On them shall light at midnight 

A strange and sudden fear ; 
When, waking to their tents on fire, 

They grasp their arms in vain, 
And they who stand to face us 

Are beat to earth again ; 
And they who fly in terror deem 

A mighty host behind, 
And hear the tramp of thousands 

Upon the hollow wind. 

Then sweet the hour that brings release 

From danger and from toil ; 
We talk the battle over, 

And share the battle's spoil. 
The woodland rings with laugh and shout, 

As if a hunt were up, 
And woodland flowers are gathered 

To crown the soldier's cup. 



1 1 6 Speaker and Reader. 

With merry songs we mock the wind 
That in the pine-top grieves, 

And slumber long and sweetly 
On beds of oaken leaves. 

Well knows the fair and friendly moon 

The band that Marion leads, — 
The glitter of their rifles, 

The scampering of their steeds. 
'T is life to guide the fiery barb 

Across the moonlight plain ; 
'T is life to feel the night wind 

That lifts his tossing mane. 
A moment in the British camp, — 

A moment, — and away 
Back to the pathless forest, 

Before the peep of day. 

Grave men there are by broad Santee, 

Grave men with hoary hairs ; 
Their hearts are all with Marion, 

For Marion are their prayers. 
And lovely ladies greet our band 

With kindliest welcoming, 
With smiles like those of summer, 

And tears like those of spring. 
For them we wear these trusty arms> 

And lay them down no more 
Till we have driven the Briton 

Forever from our shore. 



American History. 1 1 7 

FRANCIS MARION. 1 

John Fiske. 

Of all the picturesque characters of our Revolu- 
tionary period, there is perhaps no one who, in the 
memory of the people, is so closely associated with 
romantic adventure as Francis Marion. He belonged 
to that gallant race of men of whose services France 
had been forever deprived when Louis XIV revoked 
the edict of Nantes. His father had been a planter 
near Georgetown, on the coast, and the son, while 
following the same occupation, had been called off to 
the western frontier by the Cherokee war of 1759, in 
the course of which he had made himself an adept in 
woodland strategy. He was now forty-seven years old, 
a man of few words and modest demeanor, small in 
stature and slight in frame, delicately organized, but 
endowed with wonderful nervous energy and sleepless 
intelligence. Like a woman in quickness of sympathy, 
he was a knight in courtesy, truthfulness, and courage, 
The brightness of his fame was never sullied by an act 
of cruelty. " Never shall a house be burned by one 
of my people," said he; "to distress poor women and 
children is what I detest." To distress the enemy in 
legitimate warfare was, on the other hand, a business 
in which few partisan commanders have excelled him. 
For swiftness and secrecy he was unequaled, and the 
boldness of his exploits seemed almost incredible, when 

1 From The American Revolution. Vol. II, pages 183, 184. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



n8 Speaker and Reader. 

compared with the meagerness of his resources. His 
force sometimes consisted of less than twenty men, 
and seldom exceeded seventy. To arm them, he was 
obliged to take the saws from sawmills and have them 
wrought into rude swords at the country forge, while 
pewter mugs and spoons were cast into bullets. With 
such equipment he would attack and overwhelm parties 
of more than two hundred Tories ; or he would even 
swoop upon a column of British regulars on their 
march, throw them into disorder, set free their pris- 
oners, slay and disarm a score or two, and plunge out 
of sight in the darkling forest as swiftly and mysteri- 
ously as he had come. 

% 

ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE 

CORNER-STONE OF BUNKER HILL 

MONUMENT. 1 

Daniel Webster. 

We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must 
forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that 
whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, 
may behold that the place is not undistinguished where 
the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. 
We wish that this structure may proclaim the magni- 
tude and importance of that event to every class and 
every age. We wish that infancy may learn the pur- 

1 From Webster s Great Speeches. Page 126. Little, Brown & Co. 



American History. 119 

pose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary 
and withered age may behold it and be solaced by the 
recollections which it suggests. We wish that, in those 
days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, 
must be expected to come upon us also, desponding 
patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured 
that the foundations of our national power are still 
strong. We wish that this column, rising towards 
heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples 
dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all 
minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. 
We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him 
who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his 
who revisits it, may be something which shall remind 
him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it 
rise ! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming ; let 
the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day 
linger and play on its summit. 

% 

FIRST BUNKER HILL ADDRESS. 1 

Daniel Webster. 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from 
a former generation. Heaven has bounteously length- 
ened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous 
day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, 
this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, 
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. 

1 From Webster's Great Speeches. Page 127. Little, Brown & Co. 



120 Speaker and Reader. 

Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are indeed 
over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; 
but all else how changed ! You hear now no roar of 
hostile cannon ; you see no mixed volumes of smoke and 
flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground 
strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous 
charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud 
call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is 
manly to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely 
and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror 
there may be in war and death, — all these you have 
witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is 
peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers 
and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and 
children and countrymen in distress and terror, and 
looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the 
combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of 
its whole happy population, come out to welcome and 
greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, 
by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot 
of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, 
are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's 
own means of distinction and defense. All is peace ; 
and God has granted you this sight of your country's 
happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has 
allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of 
your patriotic toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons 
and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of 
the present generation, in the name of your country, in 
the name of liberty, to thank you ! 



American History. 121 



BUNKER HILL. 1 

George H. Calvert. 

" Not yet, not yet ; steady, steady ! " 
On came the foe, in even line : 
Nearer and nearer to thrice paces nine. 
We looked into their eyes. " Ready!" 
A sheet of flame ! A roll of death ! 
They fell by scores ; we held our breath ! 
Then nearer still they came ; 
Another sheet of flame ! 
And brave men fled who never fled before. 
Immortal fight ! 
Foreshadowing flight 
Back to the astounded shore. 

Quickly they rallied, reinforced. 
Mid louder roar of ship's artillery, 
And bursting bombs and whistling musketry 
And shouts and groans, anear, afar, 
All the new din of dreadful war, 
Through their broad bosoms calmly coursed 
The blood of those stout farmers, aiming 
For freedom, manhood's birthrights claiming. 
Onward once more they came ; 
Another sheet of deathful flame ! 
Another and another still : 

1 From A Nation's Birth and Other Poems. Pages 31-35. Copy- 
right by Lee & Shepard. 



122 Speaker and Header. 

They broke, they fled : 
Again they sped 
Down the green, bloody hill. 

Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, Gage, 
Stormed with commander's rage. 
Into each emptied barge 
They crowd fresh men for a new charge 

Up that great hill. 
Again their gallant blood we spill : 
That volley was the last : 
Our powder failed. 
On three sides fast 
The foe pressed in ; nor quailed 
A man. Their barrels empty, with musket-stocks 
They fought, and gave death-dealing knocks, 
Till Prescott ordered the retreat. 
Then Warren fell ; and through a leaden sleet, 

From Bunker Hill and Breed, 
Stark, Putnam, Pomeroy, Knowlton, Read, 
Led off the remnant of those heroes true, 
The foe too shattered to pursue. 
The ground they gained; but we 
The victory. 

The tidings of that chosen band 

Flowed in a wave of power 
Over the shaken, anxious land, 
To men, to man, a sudden dower. 
From that staunch, beaming hour 
History took a fresh higher start ; 



American History. 123 

And when the speeding messenger, that bare 
The news that strengthened every heart, 
Met near the Delaware 
Riding to take command, 
The leader, who had just been named, 

Who was to be so famed, 
The steadfast, earnest Washington 

With hand uplifted cries, 
His great soul flashing to his eyes, 
"Our liberties are safe; the cause is won." 

A thankful look he cast to heaven, and then 
His steed he spurred, in haste to lead such noble men. 



% 



ETHAN ALLEN'S OWN ACCOUNT OF THE 
CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA. 

The day began to dawn, and I found myself under 
the necessity to attack the fort, before the rear could 
cross the lake ; and, as it was viewed hazardous, I 
harangued the officers and soldiers in the manner 
following : — 

" Friends and fellow-soldiers, you have, for a number 
of years past, been a scourge and terror to arbitrary 
power. Your valor has been famed abroad, and ac- 
knowledged, as appears by the advice and orders to 
me, from the General Assembly of Connecticut, to sur- 
prise and take the garrison now before us. I now pro- 
pose to advance before you, and in person conduct you 



124 Speaker and Reader. 

through the wicket gate ; for we must this morning 
either quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves 
of this fortress in a few minutes ; and inasmuch as it is 
a desperate attempt, which none but the bravest of men 
dare undertake, I do not urge it on any contrary to his 
will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your 
firelocks." 

The men being at this time drawn up in three ranks, 
each poised his firelock. 

The garrison being asleep, except the sentries, we 
gave three huzzas which greatly surprised them. 

One of the sentries made a pass at one of my officers 
with a charged bayonet, and slightly wounded him. 
My first thought was to kill him with my sword ; 
but in an instant I altered the design and fury of the 
blow to a slight cut on the side of the head, upon which 
he dropped his gun and asked quarter, which I readily 
granted him, and demanded of him the place where the 
commanding officer kept ; he showed me a pair of stairs 
in the front of a barrack, on the west part of the garri- 
son, which led up to a second story in said barrack, 
to which I immediately repaired, and ordered the com- 
mander, Captain de la Place, to come forth instantly, or 
I would sacrifice the whole garrison ; at which the 
Captain came immediately to the door, with his breeches 
in his hand ; when I ordered him to deliver the fort 
instantly, he asked me by what authority I demanded 
it. I answered him, " In the name of the great Jehovah, 
and the Continental Congress." The authority of the 
Congress being very little known at that time, he began 
to speak again ; but I interrupted him, and with my 



American History. 125 

drawn sword over his head, again demanded an immedi- 
ate surrender of the garrison ; with which he then com- 
plied, and ordered his men to be forthwith paraded 
without arms, as he had given up the garrison. 



TICONDEROGA. 
J. B. Wilson. 

The cold gray light of the dawning 

On old Carillon falls, 
And dim in the mist of the morning 

Stand the grim old fortress walls. 
No sound disturbs the stillness 

Save the cataract's mellow war, 
Silent as death is the fortress, 

Silent the misty shore. 

But up from the wakening waters 

Comes the cool, fresh morning breeze, 
Lifting the banner of Britain, 

And whispering to the trees 
Of the swift gliding boats on the waters 

That are nearing the fog-shrouded land, 
With the old Green Mountain Lion, 

And his daring patriot band. 

But the sentinel at the postern 
Heard not the whisper low ; 



126 Speaker and Reader. 

He is dreaming of the banks of the Shannon 
As he walks on his beat to and fro, 

Of the starry eyes in Green Erin 

That were dim when he marched away, 

And a tear down his bronzed cheek courses, 
'Tis the first for many a day. 

A sound breaks the misty stillness, 

And quickly he glances around ; 
Through the mist, forms like towering giants 

Seem rising out of the ground ; 
A challenge, the firelock flashes ; 

A sword cleaves the quivering air, 
And the sentry lies dead by the postern, 

Blood staining his bright yellow hair. 

Then, with a shout that awakens 

All the echoes of hillside and glen, 
Through the low, frowning gate of the fortress, 

Sword in hand, rush the Green Mountain men. 
The scarce wakened troops of the garrison 

Yield up their trust pale with fear ; 
And down comes the bright British banner, 

And out rings a Green Mountain cheer. 

Flushed with pride, the whole eastern heavens 
With crimson and gold are ablaze ; 

And up springs the sun in his splendor 
And flings down his arrowy rays, 

Bathing in sunlight the fortress, 
Turning to gold the grim walls, 



American History. 127 

While louder and clearer and higher 
Rings the song of the waterfalls. 



Since the taking of Ticonderoga 

A century has rolled away ; 
But with pride the nation remembers 

That glorious morning in May. 
And the cataract's silvery music 

Forever the story tells, 
Of the capture of old Carillon, 

The chime of the silver bells. 

% 

THE BATTLE OF TRENTON. 

Anonymous. 

On Christmas-day in seventy-six, 

Our ragged troops, with bayonets fixed, 

For Trenton marched away. 
The Delaware see ! the boats below ! 
The light obscured by hail and snow ! 

But no signs of dismay ! 

Our object was the Hessian band, 
That dared invade fair freedom's land, 

And quarter in that place. 
Great Washington he led us on, 
Whose streaming flag, in storm or sun, 

Had never known disgrace. 



r.28 Speaker and Reader. 

In silent march we passed the night, 
Each soldier panting for the fight, 

Though quite benumbed with frost. 
Greene on the left at six began, 
The right was led by Sullivan 

Who ne'er a moment lost. 

The pickets stormed, the alarm was spread, 
That rebels risen from the dead 

Were marching into town. 
Some scampered here, some scampered there, 
And some for action did prepare ; 

But soon their arms laid down. 

Twelve hundred servile miscreants, 
With all their colors, guns, and tents, 

Were trophies of the day. 
The frolic o'er, the bright canteen 
In center, front, and rear was seen, 

Driving fatigue away. 

% 

THE YANKEE MAN-OF-WAR. 

Anonymous. 

'T is of a gallant yankee ship that flew the stripes 

and stars, 
And the whistling wind from the west-nor'-west blew 

through the pitch-pine spars, 



American History. 129 

With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, she hung 

upon the gale ; 
On an autumn night we raised the light on the old 

Head of Kinsale. 

It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew 

steady and strong, 
As gayly over the sparkling deep our good ship 

bowled along ; 
With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery 

waves she spread, 
And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her 

lee cat-head. 

There was no talk of short'ning sail by him who 

walked the poop, 
And under the press of her pond'ring jib, the boom 

bent like a hoop ! 
And the groaning water-ways told the strain that held 

her stout main-tack, 
But he only laughed as he glanced aloft at a white 

and silver track. 

The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow 
from shore to shore, 

And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Feather- 
stone to Dunmore, 

And that sterling light in Tusker Rock where the 
old bell tolls each hour, 

And the beacon light that shone so bright was 
quench'd on Waterford Tower. 



130 Speaker and Reader. 

The nightly robes our good ship wore were her three 

topsails set, 
Her spanker and her standing jib — the courses 

being fast ; 
" Nay, lay aloft ! my heroes bold, lose not a moment 

yet ! " 
And royals and top-gallant sails were quickly on each 

mast. 

What looms upon our starboard bow ? What hangs 
upon the breeze ? 

'T is time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the 
old Saltees, 

For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts 
four 

We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of- 
war. 

Up spake our noble Captain then, as a shot ahead of 

us past — 
" Haul snug your flowing courses ! lay your topsail to 

the mast ! " 
Those Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the 

deck of their covered ark, 
And we answered back by a solid broadside from the 

decks of our patriot bark. 

" Out booms! out booms!" our skipper cried, "out 

booms and give her sheet," 
And the swiftest keel that was ever launched shot 

ahead of the British fleet ; 



American History. 131 

And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stun'- 

sails hoisting away, 
Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer, just 

at the break of day. 



% 

THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON. 1 
Edward J. Phelps. 

If battles were to be accounted great in proportion 
to the numbers engaged, Bennington would be but 
small. But it is not numbers alone that give importance 
to battlefields. It is the cause that is fought for, the 
heroism and self-sacrifice displayed, and the conse- 
quences which follow, that give significance to conflicts 
of arms. Judged by these standards, Bennington may 
well be reckoned among the memorable battles of the 
world. 

It w T as, on our side, the people's fight. No govern- 
ment directed or supplied it ; no regular force was con- 
cerned ; it was a part of no organized campaign. New 
Hampshire sent her hastily embodied militia, not the 
less volunteers. In Vermont and Massachusetts it was 
the spontaneous uprising of a rural and peace-loving 
population, to resist invasion, to defend their homes, to 
vindicate their right of self-government. Lexington and 

1 From Oration at the Dedication of the Bennington Battle Monument, 
August 16, 1891. 



132 Speaker and Reader, 

Bunker Hill were in this respect its only parallels in the 
Revolutionary War. 

The British commander proceeded with the caution 
the importance of his expedition demanded. When he 
found that he must fight, and perceived the resolute and 
thorough soldiership of Stark's movements, he chose 
a position with excellent judgment, intrenched himself 
strongly, and placed his troops and guns to the best 
advantage. Stark could not wait, as he would have 
done, for his enemy's advance. He was unable to sub- 
sist his ill-provided forces long, nor could he keep them 
from homes that were suffering for their presence. His 
only chance was to attack at once, and his dispositions 
for it, most ably seconded by Warner, his right-hand 
man, were masterly beyond criticism. He had no 
artillery, no cavalry, no transportation, no commissariat 
but the women on the farms. Half of his troops were 
without bayonets, and even ammunition had to be hus- 
banded. He lacked everything but men, and his men 
lacked everything but hardihood and indomitable resolu- 
tion. Upon all known rules and experience of warfare, 
the successful storming, by a hastily organized militia, 
of an intrenched position at the top of a hill, held by 
an adequate regular force, would have been declared 
impossible. But it was the impossible that happened, 
in a rout of the veterans that amounted to destruction. 
History and literature, eloquence and poetry have com- 
bined to enshrine in the memory of mankind those 
decisive charges, at critical moments, by which great 
battles have been won, and epochs in the life of nations 
determined. I set against the splendor of them all that 



American History, 133 

final onset up yonder hill and over its breastworks of 
those New England farmers, on whose faces desperation 
had kindled the supernatural light of battle which never 
shines in vain. They were fighting for all they had on 
earth, whether of possessions or of rights. They could 
not go home defeated, for they would have no homes to 
go to. The desolate land that Burgoyne would have 
left, New York would have taken. Not a man was on 
the field by compulsion, or upon the slightest expecta- 
tion of personal advantage or reward. The spirit which 
made the day possible was shown in that Stephen Fay, 
of Bennington, who had five sons in the fight. When 
the first-born was brought home to him dead, " I thank 
God," he said, "that I had a son willing t© give his life 
for his country." 

% 

BURGOYNE'S SURRENDER. 1 

George William Curtis. 

John Burgoyne had airily said in London that with 
an army of ten thousand men he could promenade 
through America ; and now the brilliant gentleman was 
to make good his boast. On July 1, 1777, all hope and 
confidence, with more than seven thousand trained and 
veteran troops, besides Canadians and Indians, his 
brilliant pageant swept up Lake Champlain. On July 5, 
by the mere power of his presence, without a blow, 

1 From Orations and Addresses. Vol. Ill, pages 147-165. Copy- 
right by Harper & Brothers. 



134 Speaker and Reader. 

Ticonderoga fell, and the morning of its fall was the high 
hour of Burgoyne's career. He had undone the electric 
deed of Ethan Allen. The chief obstruction to his 
triumphal American promenade had fallen. The bright 
promise of the invasion would be fulfilled, and Burgoyne 
would be the lauded hero of the war. His eager fancy 
could picture the delight of London, the joy of the clubs, 
of Parliament, of the King. 

A hundred days later, how changed the scene ! These 
hundred days saw the desertion of his savage allies, the 
failure of the Mohawk expedition, the defeat at Ben- 
nington, and the final disaster at Saratoga. 

At eleven o'clock, on the 17th of October, 1777, 
Burgoyne's troops, with tears coursing down bearded 
cheeks, with passionate sobs, with oaths of rage and 
defiance, laid down their arms. As the British troops 
filed between the American lines, they saw no sign of 
exultation, but they heard the drums and fifes playing 
" Yankee Doodle." A few minutes later Burgoyne rode 
to the headquarters of Gates. The English general, as 
if for a court holiday, glittered in scarlet and gold ; Gates, 
plainly clad in a blue overcoat, received his guest with 
urbane courtesy. They exchanged the compliments 
of soldiers. Burgoyne said : " The fortune of war, 
General Gates, has made me your prisoner." Gates 
gracefully replied : " I shall always be ready to testify 
that it has not been through any fault of your excel- 
lency." General Burgoyne drew his sword, bowed, 
and presented it to General Gates. General Gates ■ 
bowed, received the sword, and returned it to General 
Burgoyne. 



American History. 135 

Such was the simple ceremony that marked the turn- 
ing point of the Revolution. Thenceforth it was but a 
question of time. The great doubt was solved. Out of 
a rural militia an army could be trained to cope success- 
fully with the most experienced and disciplined troops 
in the world. It was the surrender of Burgoyne that 
determined the French alliance, and the French alli- 
ance secured the final triumph. 



YORKTOWN. 1 

John G. Whittier. 

From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still, 
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill : 
Who curbs his steed at head of one ? 
Hark ! the low murmur : Washington ! 
Who bends his keen, approving glance, 
Where down the gorgeous line of France 
Shine knightly star and plume of snow? 
Thou too art victor, Rochambeau ! 

The earth which bears this calm array 
Shook with the war-charge yesterday, 
Ploughed deep with hurrying hoof and wheel, 
Shot-sown and bladed thick with steel ; 

1 From Whittier *s Poetical Woi'ks. Pages 302. 303. Copyright, 1895, 
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



1 36 Speaker and Header. 

October's clear and noonday sun 
Paled in the breath-smoke of the gun, 
And down night's double blackness fell, 
Like a dropped star, the blazing shell. 

Now all is hushed : the gleaming lines 
Stand moveless as the neighboring pines ; 
While through them, sullen, grim, and slow, 
The conquered hosts of England go : 
O'Hara's brow belies his dress, 
Gay Tarleton's troop rides bannerless : 
Shout, from thy fired and wasted homes, 
Thy scourge, Virginia, captive comes ! 

Nor thou alone : with one glad voice 

Let all thy sister States rejoice ; 

Let freedom, in whatever clime 

She waits with sleepless eye her time, 

Shouting from cave and mountain wood, 

Make glad her desert solitude, 

While they who hunt her quail with fear : 

The New World's chain lies broken here ! 

But who are they, who, cowering, wait 
Within the shattered fortress gate ? 
Dark tillers of Virginia's soil, 
Classed with the battle's common spoil, 
With household stuffs, and fowl, and swine, 
With Indian weed and planters' wine, 
With stolen beeves, and foraged corn, — 
Are they not men, Virginian born ? 



American History, 137 

Oh, veil your faces, young and brave ! 
Sleep, Scammel, in thy soldier grave ! 
Sons of the Northland, ye who set 
Stout hearts against the bayonet, 
And pressed with steady footfall near 
The moated battery's blazing tier, 
Turn your scarred faces from the sight, 
Let shame do homage to the right ! 

Lo ! fourscore years have passed ; and where 

The Gallic bugles stirred the air, 

And, through breached batteries, side by side, 

To victory stormed the hosts allied, 

And brave foes grounded, pale with pain, 

The arms they might not lift again, 

As abject as in that old day 

The slave still toils his life away. 

Oh, fields still green and fresh in story, 
Old days of pride, old names of glory, 
Old marvels of the tongue and pen, 
Old thoughts which stirred the hearts of men, 
Ye spared the wrong ; and over all 
' Behold the avenging shadow fall ! 
Your world-wide honor stained with shame, — 
Your freedom's self a hollow name ! 

Where 's now the flag of that old war ? 
Where flows its stripe ? Where burns its star ? 
Bear witness, Palo Alto's day, 
Dark Yale of Palms, red Monterey, 



1 38 Speaker and Reader. 

Where Mexic Freedom, young and weak, 
Fleshes the Northern eagle's beak ; 
Symbol of terror and despair, 
Of chains and slaves, go seek it there ! 

Laugh, Prussia, midst thy iron ranks ! 
Laugh, Russia, from thy Neva's banks ! 
Brave sport to see the fledgeling born 
Of Freedom by its parent torn ! 
Safe now is Speilberg's dungeon cell, 
Safe drear Siberia's frozen hell ; 
With Slavery's flag o'er both unrolled, 
What of the New World fears the Old ? 



% 



THE NEWS OF THE SURRENDER OF 
YORKTOWN. 1 

John Fiske. 

Early on a dark morning of the fourth week in 
October, an honest old German, slowly pacing the 
streets of Philadelphia on his night watch, began shout- 
ing, " Basht dree o'glock, und Gornvallis ish dakendt ! " 
and light sleepers sprang out of bed and threw up their 
windows. Washington's couriers laid the despatches 
before Congress in the forenoon, and after dinner a 
service of prayer and thanksgiving was held in the 

1 From The American Revolution. Vol. II, page 285. Copyright 
by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 139 

Lutheran Church. At New Haven and Cambridge the 
students sang triumphant hymns, and every village green 
in the country was ablaze with bonfires. The Duke de 
Lauzun sailed for France in a swift ship, and on the 
27th of November all the houses in Paris were illumi- 
nated, and the aisles of Notre Dame resounded with the 
Te Deum. At noon of November 25 the news was 
brought to Lord George Germain, at his house in Pall 
Mall. Getting into a cab, he drove hastily to the Lord 
Chancellor's house in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, 
and took him in ; and then they drove to Lord North's 
office in Downing Street. At the staggering news all 
the Prime Minister's wonted gaiety forsook him. He 
walked wildly up and down the room, throwing his arms 
about and crying, " O God ! it is all over ! it is all over ! 
it is all over ! " A despatch was sent to the king at 
Kew, and when Lord George received the answer that 
evening, at dinner, he observed that his Majesty wrote 
calmly, but had forgotten to date his letter — a thing 
which had never happened before. 

% 

NATHAN HALE. 1 

Charles Dudley Warner. 

It is the deed and the memorable last words we 
think of when we think of Nathan Hale. For all the 
man's life, all his character, flowered and bloomed into 

1 From an address in Hartford, Conn., at the unveiling of the Hale 
statue, June 16, 1887. 



140 Speaker and Reader. 

immortal beauty in this one supreme moment of self- 
sacrifice, triumph, defiance. The ladder on which the 
deserted body stood amidst the enemies of his country, 
when he uttered those last words, which all human 
annals do not parallel in simple patriotism — the ladder, 
I am sure, ran up to heaven, and if angels were not 
seen ascending and descending it in that gray morning, 
there stood the embodiment of American courage, uncon- 
querable ; American faith, invincible ; American love of 
country, unquenchable ; a new democratic manhood in 
the world, visible there for all men to take note of, 
crowned already with the halo of victory, in the Revolu- 
tionary Dawn. Oh, my Lord Howe ! it seemed a trifling 
incident to you and to your bloodhound, Provost-marshal 
Cunningham ; but those winged last words were worth 
ten thousand men to the drooping patriot army. Oh, 
Your Majesty, King George the Third! here was a 
spirit, could you but have known it, that would cost you 
an empire ; here was an ignominious death that would 
grow in the estimation of mankind, increasing in nobility 
above the fading pageantry of the exit of kings. 

It was on a lovely Sunday morning, September 22, 
before the break of day, that he was marched to the 
place of execution. While awaiting the necessary prep- 
arations, a courageous young officer permitted him to 
sit in his tent. He asked for the presence of a chaplain ; 
his request was refused. He asked for a Bible ; it was 
denied. But at the solicitation of the young officer he 
was furnished with writing materials, and wrote briefly 
to his mother, his sister, and his betrothed. When the 
infamous Cunningham, to whom Howe had delivered 



American History. 141 

him, read what was written, he was furious at the noble 
and dauntless spirit shown, and with foul oaths tore the 
letter into shreds, saying afterward that "the rebels 
should never know that they had a man who could 
die with such firmness." As Hale stood upon the 
fatal ladder, Cunningham taunted him, and scoffingly 
demanded "his last dying speech and confession.'' The 
hero did not heed the words of the brute, but looking 
calmly on the spectators, said in a clear voice : — 

" I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my 
country." 

% 

ANDRE AND HALE. 1 
Chauncey M. Depew. 

Andre's story is the one overmastering romance of 
the Revolution. His youth, grace, and accomplish- 
ments won the affections of his guard and the sympathy 
of the whole army. In all the glittering splendor of 
the full uniform and ornaments of his rank, in the pres- 
ence of the whole American army, without the quiver of 
a muscle or sign of fear, the officers about him weeping, 
the bands playing the dead march, he walked to execution. 
To those around he cried : " I call upon you to witness 
that I die like a brave man," and swung into eternity. 

America had a parallel case in Captain Nathan Hale. 
When no one else would go upon a most important and 
perilous mission, he volunteered, and was captured by 

1 From Orations and Speeches. Pages 246-248. Cassell & Co. 



142 Speaker and Reader. 

the British. He was ordered to execution the next 
morning. When asked what he had to say, he replied : 
"I regret I have but one life to lose for my country." 

The dying declarations of Andre and Hale express 
the animating spirit of their several armies, and teach 
why, with all her power, England could not conquer 
America. " I call upon you to witness that I die like a 
brave man," said Andre ; and he spoke from British and 
Hessian surroundings, seeking only glory and pay. " I 
regret I have but one life to lose for my country," said 
Hale ; and with him and his comrades self was forgotten 
in that passionate patriotism which pledges fortune, 
honor, and life to the sacred cause. 

ABRAHAM DAVENPORT. 1 

John G. Whittier. 

In the old days (a custom laid aside 

With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent 

Their wisest men to make the public laws. 

And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound 

Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, 

Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, 

And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, 

Stamford sent up to the councils of the State 

Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport. 

1 From Whittier 's Poetical Works. Pages 259, 260. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 143 

'T was on a May-day of the far old year 

Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell 

Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring, 

Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, 

A horror of great darkness, like the night 

In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 

The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky 

Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim 

Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs 

The crater's sides from the red hell below. 

Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls 

Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars 

Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on leathern wings 

Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; 

Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp 

To hear the down-blast of the trumpet shatter 

The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ 

Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked 

A loving guest at Bethany, but stern 

As Justice and inexorable Law. 

Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, 
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, 
Trembling beneath their legislative roles. 
" It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us adjourn," 
Some said ; and then, as if with one accord, 
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. 
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice 
The intolerable hush. "This well may be 
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits ; 
But be it so or not, I only know 



144 Speaker and Header, 

My present duty, and my Lord's command, 

To occupy till He come. So at the post 

Where He hath set me in His providence, 

I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — 

No faithless servant frightened from my task, 

But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls ; 

And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, 

Let God do His work, we will see to ours. 

Bring in the candles." And they brought them in. 

Then by the flaring lights the Speaker Tead, 

Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, 

An act to amend an act to regulate 

The shad and alewive fisheries. Whereupon 

Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, 

Straight to the question, with no figures of speech 

Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without 

The shrewd dry humor natural to the man : 

His awestruck colleagues listening all the while, 

Between the pauses of his argument, 

To hear the thunder of the wrath of God 

Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. 

And there he stands in memory to this day, 
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen 
Against the background of unnatural dark, 
A witness to the ages as they pass, 
That simple duty hath no place for fear. 



% 



American History. 145 

ON THE CAPTURE OF THE GUERRIERE. 

Anonymous. 

Long, the tyrant of our coast, 
Reigned the famous Guerriere : 

Our little navy she defied, 
Public ship and privateer ; 

On her sails in letters red, 

To our captains were displayed 

Words of warning, words of dread, 

"All who meet me, have a care! 

I am England's Guerriere." 

On the wide Atlantic deep 

(Not her equal for the fight) 
The Constitution, on her way, 

Chanced to meet these men of might : 
On her sails was nothing said : 
But her waist the teeth displayed 
That a deal of blood could shed, 
Which, if she would venture near, 
Would stain the decks of the Guerriere. 

Now our gallant ship they met, 
And, to struggle with John Bull, 

Who had come they little thought, 
Strangers, yet, to Isaac Hull. 

Better, soon, to be acquainted, 

Isaac hailed the Lord's anointed, 

While the crew the cannon pointed, 



146 Speaker and Reader. 

And the balls were so directed 
With a blaze so unexpected, — 

Isaac did so maul and rake her, 
That the decks of Captain Dacres 
Were in such a woful pickle, 
As if death, with scythe and sickle, 
With his sling or with his shaft 
Had cut his harvest fore and aft. 
Thus, in thirty minutes, ended 
Mischiefs that could not be mended : 
Masts, and yards, and ship descended, 
All to David Jones's locker — 
Such a ship in such a pucker ! 

Drink a bout to the Constitution ! 
She performed some execution, 
Did some share of retribution 

For the insults of the year, 

When she took the Guerriere. 
May success again await her, 

Let who will again command her, 
Bainbridge, Rodgers, or Decatur : 

Nothing like her can withstand her 
With a crew like that on board her 
Who so boldly called " to order" 
One bold crew of English sailors, 
Long, too long, our seamen's jailers — 

Dacres and the Guerriere ! 



* 



American History. 147 

MONTEREY. 

Charles Fenno Hoffman. 

We were not many — we who stood 

Before the iron sleet that day ; 
Yet many a gallant spirit would 
Give half his years if but he could 

Have been with us at Monterey. 

Now here, now there, the shot it hailed 

In deadly drifts of fiery spray, 
Yet not a single soldier quailed 
When wounded comrades round them wailed 

Their dying shout at Monterey. 

And on — still on our column kept, 

Through walls of flame, its withering way ; 
Where fell the dead, the living stept, 
Still charging on the guns which swept 
The slippery streets of Monterey. 

The foe himself recoiled aghast, 

When, striking where he strongest lay, 
We swooped his flanking batteries past, 
And, braving full their murderous blast, 
Stormed home the towers of Monterey. 

Our banners on those turrets wave, 

And there our evening bugles play ; 
Where orange-boughs above their grave 
Keep green the memory of the brave 
Who fought and fell at Monterey. 



148 Speaker and Reader. 

We are not many — we who pressed 

Beside the brave who fell that day ; 
But who of us has not confessed 
We 'd rather share their warrior rest 
Than not have been at Monterey. 

% 

THE BOYHOOD OF ANDREW JACKSON. 1 

Elbridge S. Brooks. 

In a low, rough house of logs, among the Carolina 
hills, where the red soil of the Waxhaw Settlement 
seemed almost typical of the blood and ruin that had 
fallen upon all that region in the merciless work of 
"Tarleton's quarter," a boy, hot with anger, stands 
openly defying his captor. He is a tall, raw-boned, red- 
haired, freckled-faced lad of fourteen, big for his years, 
perhaps, with the prophecy in his lean but sinewy form of 
the future hardy and athletic frontiersman of that rough 
and rolling hill-country of the Carolinas. The man is a 
British officer, haughty, arrogant, overbearing. " These 
peasants," he declared, referring to the conquered col- 
onists of the Carolina highlands, " have no rights. They 
must be taught their place as low-bred scum and dirty 
traitors. Here, boy ! clean this beastly red mud of 
yours from my boots. And hark ye, do it quick ! I 'm 
in haste." 

1 From Historic Americans. Pages 231-234. Copyright by Thomas 
Y. Crowell & Co. 



American History. 149 

And he flung the long military boots, well besmeared 
with the red Waxhaw clay, at the boy whom the fortunes 
of war, or, rather, the tyranny of treachery, had made a 
captive to the hated troopers of Tarleton. 

But though captive this boy of fourteen was by 
no means cowed. " Clean your own boots ! I 'm no 
slave," he cried passionately. "I am a prisoner of war. 
Because you 've got us down, you need n't think you can 
jump on us " ; and, stung to anger by the British officer's 
demand, he kicked the boots back so vindictively that 
they caromed on the Englishman's pet corns and literally 
made him " hopping mad." 

He whipped out his sword and, springing upon his 
plucky and defiant captive, struck viciously at the boy. 
Thwack ! thwack ! the British sword came down on the 
Carolina boy with lunge and cut. It laid the supple 
wrist open to the bone ; under the shock of thick red 
hair it left a cut from which streamed the still redder 
blood. 

Then the sense of unfairness which had led him to 
strike down an unarmed boy roused the Englishman's 
drowsy conscience, and he regretted what he had 
done. 

"It was your own fault," was all he said, however, as 
he kicked the muddy boots from his path and left their 
cleaning to his servant. So, after all, the big dragoon 
did not have his way. The boy from the Waxhaws did 
not clean those boots. 

But the scars made by the sword of the brutal British 
officer remained with the boy through all his long and 
active life, and as he never forgot, so he never forgave 



150 Speaker and Reader. 

that contemptuous and cruel attack, and he took good 
payment for it from England's arrogant power, all in 
good time, and with interest. For that fourteen-year-old 
Carolina boy was Andrew Jackson. 



% 

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 1 
John G. Whittier. 

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward 

far away, 
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican 

array, 
Who is losing ? who is winning ? are they far or come 

they near ? 
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the 

storm we hear. 

" Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of 
battle rolls ; 

Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have mercy on 
their souls ! " 

Who is losing ? who is winning ? " Over hill and 
over plain, 

I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the moun- 
tain rain." 

1 From Whittier } s Poetical Works. Pages 35, 36. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



American History. 151 

Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena, 

look once more : 
" Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as 

before, 
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, 

foot and horse, 
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down 

its mountain course." 

Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! the smoke 

has rolled away ; 
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the 

ranks of gray. 
Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the troop 

of Minon wheels ; 
There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon 

at their heels. 

" Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat and now 

advance ! 
Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's 

charging lance ! 
Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and 

foot together fall ; 
Like a ploughshare in the fallow^, through them ploughs 

the Northern ball." 

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and 

frightful on ! 
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us who has lost, and 

who has won ? 



152 Speaker and Reader. 

" Alas ! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe together 

fall, 
O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, for 

them all!" 

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains ! let the cool, 

gray shadows fall ; 
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain 

over all ! 
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart 

the battle rolled, 
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips 

grew cold. 

But the noble Mexic women still their holy task 

pursued, 
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and 

faint and lacking food. 
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care 

they hung, 
And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and 

Northern tongue. 

% 

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 1 

Nathan Sargent. 

Who has not heard of " John Randolph of Roanoke" ? 
A man of extraordinary powers of mind ; possessed of 

1 From Public Men and Events. Vol. I, pages 125, 126. J. B. Lip- 
pincott & Co. 



American History. 153 

a wonderful fund of information of every kind, which 
he dealt out in an extraordinary manner ; of extraor- 
dinary habits and excentricities, and of extraordinary 
personal appearance. A professed republican, yet an 
enthusiastic admirer of the British government, British 
aristocracy, English horses, and English books — every- 
thing, indeed, English. He woulc^ not have in his 
possession an American book, not even an American 
Bible. Professedly a Republican, he opposed the meas- 
ures and administration of every Republican President, 
— Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, — and bitterly the 
administration and measures of both the elder and 
the younger Adams. It seemed impossible for him to 
agree with any one. If the House, or Senate, were 
engaged in debating a bill or measure of any kind, and 
he got the floor, ten to one he would not allude to the 
subject of debate in a three or four hours' speech, but 
would discuss " everything and all things besides." 
Woe to any member who called him to order ! 

There was a member in Congress from Maine who 
became so famous for calling the "previous question" 
as to acquire the sobriquet of " Previous Question Cush- 
man." He had greatly annoyed Mr. Randolph, who in 
one of his long harangues spoke of the great mechan- 
ical ingenuity of the Germans, and gave an account of 
some of the clocks made by them, in which were auto- 
matic birds that would come out and sing, or figures of 
men which would perform various and curious antics, 
make a bow, and retire. There was one that especially 
attracted his attention ; it was a clock out of which the 
figure of a man — looking at the doomed member — 



154 Speaker and Reader. 

would frequently pop up, cry out, " Previous question ! " 
"previous question ! " and then pop down again out of 
sight. The boomerang hit the mark ; the House burst 
into a roar of laughter ; but poor Mr. " Previous Ques- 
tion " was never seen or heard of afterwards, and the 
place in the House that had known him for several 
years knew him n$ more forever after that session. 

% 

REPLY TO HAYNE. 1 

Daniel Webster. 

I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond the 
Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess 
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- 
serving liberty when the bonds that unite us together 
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself 
to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, 
with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the 
abyss below ; nor could I regard him as a safe coun- 
sellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts 
should be mainly bent on considering, not how the 
Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might 
be the condition of the people when it should be broken 
up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have 
high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, 
for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to 
penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, 
that curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision 

1 From Webster's Great Speeches. Page 269. Little, Brown & Co. 



American History. 155 

never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes 
shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in 
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and 
dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on 
States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land 
rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal 
blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather 
behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known 
and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, 
its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, 
not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, 
bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 
"What is all this worth ? " nor those other words of delu- 
sion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards" ; 
but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living 
light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over 
the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true 
American heart — Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
one and inseparable ! 

MASSACHUSETTS; FROM THE REPLY 
TO HAYNE. 1 

Daniel Webster. 

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon 
Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she is. Be- 
hold her and judge for yourselves. There is her his- 
tory ; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, 

1 From Webster s Great Speeches. Page 254. Little, Brown & Co. 



156 Speaker and Reader. 

is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington 
and Bunker Hill ; and there they will remain forever. 
The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for 
Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every 
State from New England to Georgia ; and there they 
will lie forever. And, Sir, where American Liberty 
raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured 
and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its 
manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and 
disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambi- 
tion shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if 
uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint shall 
succeed in separating it from that Union, by which 
alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the 
end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was 
rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of 
vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather 
round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst 
the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the 
very spot of its origin. 

WEBSTER AT BUNKER HILL. 

Samuel G. Goodrich. 

The- first time I ever saw Mr. Webster was on the 
17th of June, 1825, at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Bunker Hill Monument. I shall never forget his 
appearance as he strode across the open area, encircled 
by some fifty thousand persons --— men and women — 



American History. 157 

waiting for the " Orator of the Day," nor the shout 
that simultaneously burst forth, as he was recognized, 
carrying up to the skies the name of "Webster!" 
"Webster!" "Webster!" 

It was one of those lovely days in June, when the 
sun is bright, the air clear, and the breath of nature so 
sweet and pure as to fill every bosom with a grateful 
joy in the mere consciousness of existence. There 
were present long files of soldiers in their holiday 
attire ; there were many associations, with their mottoed 
banners ; there were lodges and grand lodges, in white 
aprons and blue scarfs ; there were miles of citizens 
from the towns and the country round about ; there were 
two hundred gray-haired men, remnants of the days 
of the Revolution ; there was among them a stranger, 
of great mildness and dignity of appearance, on whom 
all eyes rested, and when his name was known, the 
air echoed with the cry — " Welcome, welcome, Lafa- 
yette ! " Around all this scene was a rainbow of beauty 
such as New England alone can furnish. 

I have looked on many mighty men — and yet 
not one of these approached Mr. Webster in the 
commanding power of their personal: presence. There 
was a grandeur in his form, an intelligence in his deep 
dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a significance 
in his arched lip, altogether beyond those of any other 
human being I ever saw. And these, on the occasion 
to which I allude, had their full expression and interpre- 
tation. 



f? 



158 Speaker and Reader. 

JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG. 1 

Bret Harte. 

Have you heard the story that gossips tell 

Of Burns of Gettysburg ? — No ? Ah, well : 

Brief is the glory that hero earns, 

Briefer the story of poor John Burns : 

He was the fellow who won renown, — 

The only man who didn't back down 

When the rebels rode through his native town : 

But held his own in the fight next day, 

When all his townsfolk ran away. 

That was in July, sixty-three, 

The very day that General Lee, 

Flower of Southern chivalry, 

Baffled and beaten, backward reeled 

From a stubborn Meade and a barren field. 

Just where the tide of battle turns, 

Erect and lonely stood old John Burns. 

How do you think the man was dressed ? 

He wore an ancient long buff vest, 

Yellow as saffron, — but his best ; 

And, buttoned over his manly breast, 

Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar, 

And large gilt buttons, — size of a dollar, — 

With tails that the country-folk called "swaller." 

He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat, 

1 From Poems by Bret Harte. Pages 91-97. Copyright by James 
R. Osgood & Co. 






American History. 159 

White as the locks on which it sat. 
Never had such a sight been seen 
For forty years on the village green, 
Since old John Burns was a country beau, 
And went to the "quiltings" long ago. 

Close at his elbows all that day, 

Veterans of the Peninsula, 

Sunburnt and bearded, charged away ; — 

And striplings, downy of lip and chin, — 

Clerks that the Home Guard mustered in, — 

Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore, 

Then at the rifle his right hand bore ; 

And hailed him, from out their youthful lore, 

With scraps of a slangy repertoire : 

"How are you, White Hat!" "Put her through!" 

" Your head's level," and "Bully for you!" 

Called him "Daddy," — begged he'd disclose 

The name of the tailor who made his clothes, 

And what was the value he set on those ; 

While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff, 

Stood there picking the rebels off, — 

With his long brown rifle, and bell-crown hat, 

And the swallow-tails they were laughing at. 

'Twas but a moment, for that respect 
Which clothes all courage their voices checked ; 
And something the mildest could understand, 
Spoke in the old man's strong right hand ; 
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown 
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown ; 



160 Speaker and Reader. 

Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe 
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw, 
In the antique vestments and long white hair, 
The Past of the Nation in battle there ; 
And some of the soldiers since declare 
That the gleam of his old white hat afar, 
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre, 
That day was their oriflamme of war. 

So raged the battle. You know the rest : 
How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed, 
Broke at the final charge, and ran. 
At which John Burns — a practical man — 
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows, 
And then went back to his bees and cows. 

That is the story of old John Burns ; 

This is the moral the reader learns : 

In fighting the battle, the question's whether 

You '11 show a hat that 's white, or a feather ! 

% 

LITTLE GIFFEN OF TENNESSEE. 

Francis O. Ticknor. 

Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire, 
Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene, 
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!) 
Spectre such as we seldom see, 
Little Giffen of Tennessee ! 



American History. 161 

" Take him — and welcome !" the surgeon said; 
" Much your doctor can help the dead ! " 
And so we took him and brought him where 
The balm was sweet on the summer air ; 
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed — 
Utter Lazarus, heel to head ! 

Weary war with the bated breath, 
Skeleton boy against skeleton Death, 
Months of torture, how many such ! 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch ! 
Still a glint in the steel-blue eye 
Spoke of the spirit that would not die, 

And did n't, nay, more ! in death's despite 
The crippled skeleton learned to write ! 
" Dear mother," at first, of course ; and then, 
" Dear captain " — inquiring about " the men." 
Captain's answer — " Of eighty and five, 
Giffen and I are left alive!" 

" Johnston's pressed at the front, they say!" 

Little Giffen was up and away. 

A tear, his first, as he bade good-by, 

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye ; 

"I'll write, if spared." There was news of a fight, 

But none of Giffen. He did not write ! 

I sometimes fancy that were I king 
Of the princely knights of the Golden Ring, 
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear, 
And the tender legend that trembles here, 



1 62 Speaker and Reader. 

I 'd give the best, on his bended knee, 
The whitest soul of my chivalry, 
For Little Giffen of Tennessee ! 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRESENT. 1 
George William Curtis. 

Heroism is in the deed, not in the distance. The 
brave youth seems a hero when we see, three hundred 
years ago, Philip Sidney shot and mortally wounded. 
Borne fainting upon his horse from the field, he asks for 
water. But, as it is brought to him and as he is raising 
it to his lips, he sees the eyes of a dying soldier fixed 
upon it with passionate longing. Then leaning from 
the saddle, the gentleman of gentlemen, the flower of 
English manhood, hands the cup to the soldier, and the 
dying hero whispers to his dying comrade, " Friend, thy 
necessity is yet greater than mine." History will never 
tire of the beautiful story. 

But more than three hundred years later a gunner at 
Gettysburg falls, mortally wounded, by his gun. The 
battle rages on, and, tortured by thirst, the dying man 
says to his comrade, serving the gun alone, " Johnny, 
Johnny, for the love of God give me a drop of water." 
" Ah, Jamie," says his comrade, "there's not a drop in 

1 From Orations and Addresses. Vol. Ill, pages 56, 57. Copyright 
by Harper & Brothers. 



American History, 163 

my canteen, and if I go to fetch it the rebs will have the 
gun." " No matter, then, Johnny ; stick to your gun," 
is the answer ; and when, after a desperate struggle, 
with a ringing shout of victory the line moves forward, 
it is over Jamie's dead body. Does it need three hun- 
dred years to make that self-sacrifice as beautiful as 
Sidney's ? Jamie is not less a hero than the English- 
man, and the brave Sidney clasps his hand in Paradise. 
The past was a good time, but the present is a better. 

% 

THE CUMBERLAND. 1 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, 

On board of the Cumberland, sloop of war ; 
And at times from the fortress across the bay 
The alarum of drums swept past, 
Or a bugle blast 
From the camp on the shore. 

Then far away to the south uprose 

A little feather of snow-white smoke, 
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes 
Was steadily steering its course 
To try the force 
Of our ribs of oak. 

1 From Longfellow } s Complete Poetical Works. Page 202. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



164 Speaker and Reader. 

Down upon us heavily runs, 

Silent and sullen, the floating fort ; 
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, 
And leaps the terrible death, 
With fiery breath, 
From each open port. 

We are not idle, but send her straight 

Defiance back in a full broadside ! 
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, 
Rebounds our heavier hail 
From each iron scale 
Of the monster's hide. 

" Strike your flag ! " the rebel cries, 

In his arrogant old plantation strain, 
" Never ! " our gallant Morris replies ; 

"It is better to sink than to yield!" 
And the whole air pealed 
With the cheers of our men. 

Then, like a kraken huge and black, 

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp ! 
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, 
With a sudden shudder of death, 
And the cannon's breath 
For her dying grasp. 

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, 

Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. 
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day ! 



American History. 165 

Every waft of the air 
Was a whisper of prayer, 
Or a dirge for the dead. 

Ho ! brave hearts that went down in the seas ! 
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream ; 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! 

THE BOMBARDMENT OF VICKSBURG. 
Paul Hamilton Hayne. 

For sixty days and upwards 

A storm of shell and shot 
Rained round us in a flaming shower, 

But still we faltered not ! 
"If the noble city perish," 

Our grand young leader said, 
"Let the only walls the foe shall scale 

Be ramparts of the dead ! " 

For sixty days and upwards 

The eye of heaven waxed dim ; 
And even throughout God's holy morn, 

O'er Christian prayer and hymn, 
Arose a hissing tumult, 

As if the fiends of air 
Strove to engulf the voice of faith 

In the shrieks of their despair. 



1 66 Speaker and Header. 

There was wailing in the houses, 

There was trembling on the marts, 
While the tempest raged and thundered 

'Mid the silent thrill of hearts : 
But the Lord, our shield, was with us ; 

And ere a month had sped, 
Our very women walked the streets 

With scarce one throb of dread. 

And the little children gamboled, — 

Their faces purely raised, 
Just for a wondering moment, 

As the huge bombs whirled and blazed ! 
Then turned with silvery laughter 

To the sports w T hich children love, 
Thrice-mailed in the sweet, instinctive thought 

That the good God watched above. 

Yet the hailing bolts fell faster 

From scores of flame-clad ships, 
And above us denser, darker, 

Grew the conflict's wild eclipse ; 
Till a solid cloud closed o'er us, 

Like a type of doom and ire, 
Whence shot a thousand quivering tongues 

Of forked and vengeful fire. 

But the unseen hands of angels 
Those death-shafts warned aside, 

And the dove of heavenly mercy 
Ruled o'er the battle-tide ; 



A?nerican History. 167 

In the houses ceased the wailing, 
And through the war-scarred marts 

The people strode, with step of hope, 
To the music in their hearts. 



THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAUGA. 1 
James A. Garfield. 

To General Thomas a battle was a calm, rational con- 
centration of force against force. It was a question of 
lines and positions — of weight of metal and strength of 
battalions. His remark to a captain of artillery while 
inspecting a battery exhibits his theory of success : 
" Keep everything in order, for the fate of a battle 
may turn on a buckle or a linchpin." 

The last day at Chickamauga exhibited, in one supreme 
example, the vast resources of his prodigious strength. 
After a day of heavy fighting and a night of anxious 
preparation, General Rosecrans had established his lines 
for the purpose of holding the road to Chattanooga. 
This road was the great prize to be won or lost at 
Chickamauga. The substance of his order to Thomas 
was this : " Your line lies across the road to Chatta- 
nooga. That is the pivot of the battle. Hold it at all 
hazards, and I will reinforce you, if necessary, with the 
whole army." 

1 From Works of James A. Garfield. Pages 602-665. James R. 
Osgood. Copyright by Lucretia R. Garfield. 



1 68 Speaker and Reader. 

During the whole night, the reinforcements of the 
enemy were coming in. Early next morning we were 
attacked along the whole line. Thomas commanded the 
left and center of our army. From early morning he 
withstood the furious and repeated attacks of the enemy, 
who constantly reinforced his assaults on our left. 
About noon our whole right wing was broken, and 
driven in hopeless confusion from the field. Rosecrans 
was himself swept away in the tide of retreat. The forces 
of Longstreet, which had broken our right, desisted from 
the pursuit, and, forming in heavy columns, assaulted 
Thomas's right flank with unexampled fury. Seeing 
the approaching danger, he threw back his exposed 
flank toward the base of the mountain and met the 
new peril. 

While men shall read the history of battles, they will 
never fail to study and admire the work of Thomas 
during that afternoon. With but twenty-five thousand 
men, formed in a semicircle of which he himself was the 
center and soul, he successfully resisted for more than 
five hours the repeated assaults of an army of sixty-five 
thousand men, flushed with victory and bent on his 
annihilation. Toward the close of the day his ammuni- 
tion began to fail. One by one his division commanders 
reported but ten rounds, five rounds, or two rounds left. 
The calm, quiet answer was returned : " Save your fire 
for close quarters, and when your last shot is fired give 
them the bayonet. ,, When night had closed over the 
combatants, the last sound of battle was the booming of 
Thomas's shells bursting among his baffled and retreated 
assailants. 



American History. 169 

He was, indeed, the " Rock of Chickamauga," against 
which the wild waves of battle dashed in vain. It will 
stand written forever in the annals of his country that 
there he saved from destruction the Army of the 
Cumberland. He held the road to Chattanooga. The 
campaign was successful. The gate of the mountains 
was ours. 

SHERIDAN'S RIDE. 

Thomas Buchanan Read. 

Up from the south at break of clay, 
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, 
The affrighted air with a shudder bore, 
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, 
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar, 
Telling the battle was on once more, 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

And wider still those billows of war 
Thunder'd along the horizon's bar ; 
And louder yet into Winchester roll'd 
The roar of that red sea uncontroll'd, 
Making the blood of the listener cold, 
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

But there is a road from Winchester town, 

A good broad highway leading down : 

And there, through the flush of the morning light, 

A steed as black as the steeds of night 



1 70 Speaker and Header. 

Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight. 
As if he knew the terrible need, 
He stretch'd away with his utmost speed ; 
Hills rose and fell ; but his heart was gay, 
With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 

Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south, 
The dust like smoke from the cannon's mouth, 
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, 
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. 
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master 
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, 
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls ; 
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, 
With Sheridan only ten miles away. 

Under his spurning feet, the road, 
Like an arrowy Alpine river flow'd, 
And the landscape sped away behind 
Like an ocean flying before the wind ; 
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace fire, 
Swept on, with his wild eye full of ire. 
But, lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire ; 
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 
With Sheridan only five miles away. 

The first that the general saw were the groups 

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops ; 

What was done ? what to do ? a glance told him both. 

Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath, 

He dash'd down the line 'mid a storm of huzzas, 



American History. 171 

And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because 
The sight of the master compell'd it to pause. 
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray ; 
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril's play, 
He seem'd to the whole great army to say : 
" I have brought you Sheridan all the way 

From Winchester, down to save the day." 

Hurrah ! hurrah for Sheridan ! 

Hurrah ! hurrah for horse and man ! 

And when their statues are placed on high, 

Under the dome of the Union sky, 

The American soldier's Temple of Fame, 

There with the glorious general's name 

Be it said, in letters both bold and bright : 

" Here is the steed that saved the day 
By carrying Sheridan into the fight, 

From Winchester, — twenty miles away!" 



% 



COL. ROBERT GOULD SHAW AT FORT 
WAGNER. 1 

William James. 

A terrific bombardment was playing on Fort Wag- 
ner, then the most formidable earthwork ever built, and 
the general, knowing Shaw's desire to place his men 

1 From Address, The Monument to Robert Gould Shaw. Its Incep- 
tion, Completion, and Unveiling. Pages 81, 82. Copyright by Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



172 Speaker and Reader. 

beside white troops, said to him : " Colonel, Fort Wag- 
ner is to be stormed this evening, and you may lead the 
column if you say yes. Your men, I know, are worn out, 
but do as you choose." Shaw's face brightened. " Before 
answering the general, he instantly turned to me," writes 
the adjutant who reports the interview, "and said : 'Tell 
Colonel Hallowell to bring up the 54th immediately.' " 

This was done, and just before nightfall the attack 
was made. Shaw was serious, for he knew the assault 
was desperate, and had a premonition of his end. Walk- 
ing up and down in front of the regiment, he briefly 
exhorted them to prove that they were men. Then he 
gave the order : " Move in quick time till within a hun- 
dred yards, then double quick and charge. Forward ! " 
and the 54th advanced to the storming, its colonel and 
the colors at its head. 

On over the sand, through a narrow defile which broke 
up the formation, double quick over the chevmtx de frise, 
into the ditch and over it, as best they could, and up the 
rampart ; with Fort Sumter, which had seen them, play- 
ing on them, and Fort Wagner, now one mighty mound 
of fire, tearing out their lives. Shaw led from first to 
last. Gaining successfully the parapet, he stood there 
for a moment with uplifted sword, shouting, " Forward, 
54th ! " and then fell headlong, with a bullet through his 
heart. The battle raged for nigh two hours. Regiment 
after regiment, following upon the 54th, hurled them- 
selves upon its ramparts, but Fort Wagner was nobly 
defended, and for that night stood safe. 



American History. 173 

LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS, JUNE 16, 1858. 1 

Abraham Lincoln. 

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I 
believe that this government cannot endure half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
solved. I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all 
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of 
slavery will arrest the farther spread of it and place it 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is 
in the course of ultimate extinction, or the advocates of 
it will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful 
in all the States — old as well as new, North as well as 
South. The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail 
— if we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels 
may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, 
the victory is sure to come. 

% 

FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 2 

Abraham Lincoln ; 

If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold 
the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good 
reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, 

1 From Addresses and Letters of Abraham Lincoln. Pages 240, 245. 
Copyright by The Century Company. 

2 From Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. John G. Nicolay and 
John Hay. Vol. II, page 7. Copyright by The Century Company. 



174 Speaker and Reader. 

Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never 
yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to 
adjust in the best way our present difficulty. 

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have 
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. 
You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 
" preserve, protect, and defend it." 

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. 
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every 
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they 
will be, by the better angels of our nature. 



ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE 
GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY. 1 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. 

1 From Letters and State Papers. Page 439. Copyright by The 
Century Company. 



American History. 175 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and 
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great 
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a 
portion of that field as a final resting-place for those 
who here gave their lives that that nation might live. 
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do 
this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can- 
not consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have con- 
secrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The 
world will little note nor long remember what we say here, 
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, 
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished 
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly 
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the 
great task remaining before us — that from these honored 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which 
they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ; 
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom ; and that the government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 



% 



1 76 Speaker and Reader. 

THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 
Henry Ward Beecher. 

In one hour, under the blow of a single bereavement, 
joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam, or breath. A 
sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms 
sweep through the forest and field, rolling thunder along 
the sky, disheveling the flowers, daunting every singer 
in thicket or forest, and pouring blackness and darkness 
across the land and upon the mountains. Did ever so 
many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such bound- 
less feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the 
uttermost of sorrow ; — noon and midnight without a 
space between ! 

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so ter- 
rible that at first it stunned sensibility. Citizens were 
like men awakened at midnight by an earthquake, and 
bewildered to find everything that they were accus- 
tomed to trust wavering and falling. The very earth 
was no longer solid. The first feeling was the least. 
Men waited to get straight to feel. They wandered in 
the streets as if groping after some impending dread, or 
undeveloped sorrow, or some one to tell them what ailed 
them. They met each other as if each would ask the 
other, "Am I awake, or do I dream?" There was a 
piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed down and 
wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some 
one in chief ; this belonged to all. It was each and 

1 From Patriotic Addresses. Edited by J. R. Howard. Pages 704, 
705. Copyright by Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 



American History. 177 

every man's. Every virtuous household in the land felt 
as if its first-born were gone. Men were bereaved, and 
walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their 
dwellings. There was nothing else to think of. They 
could speak of nothing but that ; and yet, of that they 
could speak only falteringly. All business was laid 
aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The great city for 
nearly a week ceased to roar. The huge Leviathan 
lay down and was still. Even avarice stood still, and 
greed was strangely moved to generous sympathy and 
universal sorrow. Rear to his name monuments, found 
charitable institutions, and write his name above their 
lintels ; but no monument will ever equal the universal, 
spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment 
swept down lines and parties, and covered up animosi- 
ties, and in an hour brought a divided people into unity 
of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish. 

% 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 

James Russell Lowell. 

On the day of his death this simple Western attor- 
ney was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and 
this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had 
laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. 
Nor w r as this all, for he had drawn the great majority, 

1 From LowelVs Prose Works, Vol. V, page 209. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



1 78 Speaker and Reader. 

not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his 
side ; so strong and so persuasive is honest manliness 
without a single quality of romance or unreal sentiment 
to help it. A civilian, awkward, with no skill in the 
lower technicalities of manners, he left behind him a 
fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of 
a grace higher than that of outward person, and of a 
gentlemanliness deeper than mere breeding. Never 
before that startled April morning did such multitudes 
of men shed tears for the death of one they had never 
seen, as if with him a friendly presence had been taken 
away from their lives, leaving them colder and darker. 
Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent 
look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they 
met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a 
kinsman. 



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 
Walt Whitman. 

(On the Death of Lincoln?) 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weather'd every rock, the prize we 

sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all 

exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim 

and daring : 



American History. 179 

But, O heart ! heart ! heart ! 

Oh, the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
Rise up, — for you the flag is flung, — for you the 

bugle trills ; 
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths, — for you 

the shores a-crowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 

turning ; 

Here, Captain ! dear father ! 

This arm beneath your head ! 
It is some dream that on the deck 

You Ve fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and 

still ; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse 

nor will ; 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed 

and done ; 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object 

won ; 

Exult, O shores ! and ring, O bells ! 

But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 



180 Speaker and Reader. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 
Robert G. Ingersoll. 

Lincoln had the advantage of living in a new 
country, of social equality, of personal freedom. He 
knew and mingled with men of every kind ; and, after 
all, men are the best books. He became acquainted 
with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means 
used to accomplish ends, the springs of action, and the 
seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with 
actual things, with common facts. 

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles 
and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as 
light ; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the per- 
fect image of his thought. No man had keener wit or 
kinder humor. He was natural in his life and thought 
— master of the story-teller's art. He was an orator — 
clear, sincere, natural. He knew that the greatest ideas 
should be expressed in the shortest words. 

Lincoln was an immense personality — firm but not 
obstinate. He knew others, because perfectly acquainted 
with himself. He was severe with himself, and for that 
reason lenient with others. He cared nothing for place, 
but everything for principle ; nothing for money, but 
everything for independence. He knew no fear except 
the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the 
master, seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices, 
he was the embodiment of the courage, the hope, the 

1 From Prose-Poems. Pages 240-247. Copyright by C. P. Farrell, 
New York, N. Y. 



American History, 181 

self-denial, the nobility of a nation. He spoke, not to 
inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his 
hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to 
pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks 
of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. 

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil 
war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. 

% 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 

James Russell Lowell. 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 
And cannot make a man 
Sa\ r e on some worn-out plan, 
Repeating us by rote : 
For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw, 
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West, 
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God and true. 
Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

1 From Coinm em oration Ode. Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



182 



Speaker and Reader. 



GENERAL GRANT'S POLICY AND HIS 
GREATEST VICTORY. 1 

Elbridge S. Brooks. 

General Grant deplored and detested war ; but 
once engaged in it, he fought to win. 

" Give the enemy no rest ; strike him, and keep striking 
him. The war must be ended, and we must end it now." 

That was his theory of war ; and he fought straight 
on, never halting in his opinion, never wavering in his 
actions, saying to those who questioned him, " I shall 
fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." 

Thereupon the people and the president knew that 
they had a soldier to rely on, a man with a genius for 
successful war, a general who never took one backward 
step. In just thirteen months after Grant assumed his 
command as head of the American army the end came, 
and, in the apple orchard at Appomattox, the last stand 
was made, the last gun was fired, the white flag flut- 
tered for a truce, and in the little McLean farmhouse 
the two great opposing generals met in conference, and 
the Southern army laid down its arms in surrender. 

Then General Grant won a greater victory through 
kindness. For where he might have been harsh he was 
magnanimous. He was not one to exult over a valiant 
but fallen foeman. 

"They are Americans, and our brothers," he said. 
He gave them back their horses, so that they could 

1 From Historic Americans, Pages 377, 378. Copyright by Thomas 
Y. Crowell & Co. 



American History. 183 

plow their farms for planting ; he gave them food and 
clothes, and sent them all home to their families. " The 
war is over," he said to North and South alike. " Let 
us have peace." 

% 

GENERAL GRANT. 1 

James Russell Lowell. 

Strong, simple, silent are the steadfast laws 

That sway this universe, of none withstood, 

Unconscious of man's outcries or applause, 

Or what man deems his evil or his good ; 

And when the Fates ally them with a cause 

That wallows in the sea-trough and seems lost, 

Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands 

Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, tost, 

Strength, silence, simpleness, of these three strands 

They twist the cable shall the world hold fast 

To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock of the Past. 

Strong, simple, silent, therefore such was he 

Who helped us in our need ; the eternal law 

That who can saddle Opportunity 

Is God's elect, though many a mortal flaw 

May minish him in eyes that closely see, 

Was verified in him : what need we say 

Of one who made success where others failed, 

Who, with no light save that of common day, 

Struck hard, and still struck on till Fortune quailed, 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



184 Speaker and Reader. 

But that (so sift the Norns) a desperate van 
Ne'er fell at last to one who was not wholly man. 

Nothing ideal, a plain-people s man, 

He came grim-silent, saw and did the deed 

That was to do ; in his master-grip 

Our sword flashed joy ; no skill of words could breed 

Such sure conviction as that close-clamped lip ; 

He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew 

He had done more than any simplest man might do. 

Yet did this man, war-tempered, stern as steel 
Where steel opposed, prove soft in civil sway ; 
The hand hilt-hardened had lost tact to feel 
The world's base coin, and glozing knaves made prey 
Of him and of the entrusted Commonweal ; 
So Truth insists and will not be denied. 
We turn our eyes away, and so will Fame, 
As if in his last battle he had died 
Victor for us and spotless of all blame, 
Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk, 
One of those still plain men that do the world's rough 
work. 

% 

GRANT'S CLAIMS TO FAME. 1 

Thomas W. Higginson. 

The claims of Grant to fame will lie first in the fact 
that he commanded the largest civilized armies the 
world ever saw ; secondly, that with these armies he 

1 From Contemporaries. Page 327. Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin 

& Co. 



American History. 185 

saved the integrity of the American nation ; thirdly, 
that he did all this by measures of his own initiating, 
rarely calling a council of war and commonly differing 
from it when called ; fourthly, that he did all this for 
duty, not glory, and in the spirit of a citizen, not the 
military spirit, persisting to the last that he was, as he 
told Bismarck, more of a farmer than a soldier ; then 
again, that when tested by the severest personal griefs 
and losses in the decline of life, he showed the same 
strong qualities still ; and, finally, that in writing his 
own memoirs he was simple as regards himself, candid 
toward opponents, and thus bequeathed to the world a 
book better worth reading than any military autobiog- 
raphy since Caesar's Commentaries. 

% 

GENERAL GRANT'S COURAGE AND 
DECISION. 1 

James G. Blaine. 

Napoleon said : " The rarest attribute among gen- 
erals is two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage." " I mean," 
he added, •" unprepared courage, that which is necessary 
on an unexpected occasion and which, in spite of the 
most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment 
and promptness of decision." No better description could 
be given of the type of courage which distinguished Gen- 
eral Grant. 

1 From Political Discussions. Pages 474, 475. The Henry Bill Pub- 
lishing Company. Copyright by James G. P>laine. 



1 86 Speaker and Reader. 

His constant readiness to fight was another quality 
which, according to the same high authority, established 
his rank as a commander. " Generals," said the exile at 
St. Helena, " are rarely found eager to give battle ; they 
choose their positions, consider their combinations, and 
then indecision begins." " Nothing," added this greatest 
warrior of modern times, " nothing is so difficult as to 
decide." General Grant, in his services in the field, 
never once exhibited indecision. This was the quality 
which gave him his crowning characteristic as a military- 
leader ; he inspired his men with a sense of their invin- 
cibility, and they were thenceforth invincible ! 

% 

GENERAL GRANT AS A COMMANDER. 1 

Horace Porter. 

As a commander of men in the field General Grant 
manifested the highest characteristics of the soldier, as 
evinced in every battle in which he was engaged from 
Palo Alto to Appomattox. He was bold in conception, 
fixed in purpose, and vigorous in execution. . He never 
allowed himself to be thrown on the defensive, but 
always aimed to take the initiative in battle. He made 
armies and not cities the objective points of his cam- 
paigns. Obstacles which would have deterred another 
seemed only to inspire him with greater confidence, and 

1 From an oration at the dedication of the Grant monument in New 
York, April 27, 1897. 



American History. 187 

his soldiers soon learned to reflect much of his determi- 
nation. His motto was " When in doubt move to the 
front." His sword always pointed the way to an ad- 
vance ; its hilt was never presented to an enemy. He 
once wrote in a letter to his father, " I never expect to 
have an army whipped, unless it is badly whipped, and 
can't help it." He enjoyed a physical constitution w T hich 
enabled him to endure every form of fatigue and priva- 
tion incident to military service in the field. His unas- 
suming manner, purity of character, and absolute loyalty 
inspired loyalty in others, confidence in his methods, and 
gained him the devotion of the humblest of his subordi- 
nates. He exhibited a rapidity of thought and action 
on the field which enabled him to move with a prompt- 
ness rarely ever equaled, and which never failed to 
astonish, and often to baffle, the best efforts of a less 
vigorous opponent. A study of his martial deeds in- 
spires us with the grandeur of events and the majesty 
of achievement. He did not fight for glory, but for 
National existence and the equality and rights of men. 
His sole ambition was his country's prosperity. His 
victories failed to elate him. In the despatches which 
reported his triumphs there was no word of arrogance, no 
exaggeration, no aim at dramatic effect. • With all his 
self-reliance he was never betrayed into immodesty of 
expression. He never underrated himself in a battle, he 
never overrated himself in a report. He could not only 
command armies, he could command himself. Inex- 
orable as he was in battle, war never hardened his 
heart or weakened the strength of his natural affections. 
He retained a singularly sensitive nature, a rare tender- 



1 88 Speaker and Reader. 

ness of feeling ; shrank from the sight of blood, and was 
painfully alive to every form of human suffering. 



% 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 1 

On a quiet autumn morning, in the land which he 
loved so well, and, as he held, served so faithfully, the 
spirit of Robert Edward Lee left the clay which it had 
so much ennobled, and traveled out of this world into 
the great and mysterious land. The expressions of 
regret which sprang from the few who surrounded the 
bedside of the dying soldier and Christian, on yesterday, 
will be swelled to-day into one mighty voice of sorrow, 
resounding throughout our country, and extending over 
all parts of the world where his great genius and his 
many virtues are known. For not to the Southern 
people alone shall be limited the tribute of a tear over 
the dead Virginian. Here in the North, forgetting that 
the time was when the sword of Robert Edward Lee 
was drawn against us, — forgetting and forgiving all the 
years of bloodshed and agony, — we have long since 
ceased to look upon him as the Confederate leader, but 
have claimed him as one of ourselves ; have cherished 
and felt proud of his military genius as belonging to us ; 
have recounted and recorded his triumphs as our own ; 
have extolled his virtue as reflecting upon us ; for 
Robert Edward Lee was an American, and the great 

1 From The New York Herald, on the morning after his death. 



American History. 189 

nation which gave him birth would be to-day unworthy 
of such a son if she regarded him lightly. 

Never had mother a nobler son. In him the mili- 
tary genius of America was developed to a greater 
extent than ever before. In him all that was pure and 
lofty in mind and purpose found lodgment. Dignified 
without presumption, affable without familiarity, he 
united all those charms of manners which made him 
the idol of his friends and of his soldiers, and won for 
him the respect and admiration of the world. Even as, 
in the days of his triumph, glory did not intoxicate, so, 
when the dark clouds swept over him, adversity did not 
depress. From the hour that he surrendered his sword 
at Appomattox to the fatal autumn morning, he passed 
among men, noble in his quiet, simple dignity, display- 
ing neither bitterness nor regret over the irrevocable 
past. He conquered us in misfortune by the grand 
manner in which he sustained himself, even as he daz- 
zled us by his genius when the tramp of his soldiers 
resounded through the valleys of Virginia. 

And for such a man we are all tears and sorrow 
to-day. Standing beside his grave, men of the South 
and men of the North can mourn with all the bitterness 
of four years of warfare erased by this common bereave- 
ment. May this unity of grief — this unselfish mani- 
festation over the loss of the Bayard of America — in 
the season of dead leaves and withered branches which 
this death ushers in, bloom and blossom like the distant 
coming spring into the flowers of a heartier accord ! 

In person General Lee was a notably handsome 
man. He was tall of stature, and admirably propor- 



190 Speaker and Reader. 

tioned ; his features were regular and most amiable 
in appearance, and in his manners he was courteous 
and dignified. In social life he was much admired. 
As a slaveholder, he was beloved by his slaves for his 
kindness and consideration toward them. General Lee 
was also noted for his piety. He was an Episcopalian, 
and was a regular attendant at church. Having a per- 
fect command over his temper, he was never seen 
angry, and his most intimate friends never heard him 
utter an oath. He came nearer the ideal of a soldier 
and Christian general than any man we can think of, 
for he was a greater soldier than Havelock, and equally 
as devout a Christian. In his death our country has 
lost a son of whom she might well be proud, and for 
whose services she might have stood in need had he 
lived a few years longer, for we are certain that, had 
occasion required it, General Lee would have given to 
the United States the benefit of all his great talents. 

THE NEW SOUTH. 1 

Henry W. Grady. 

Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate sol- 
dier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole 
which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity 

1 From The Life, Writings, and Speeches of Henry W. Grady. Pages 
86,87, 88, 91. Cassell Publishing Company. Copyright by Mrs. Henry 
W. Grady. 



American History. 191 

and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox 
in April, 1865. Think of him as, ragged, half -starved, 
heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having 
fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the 
hands of his comrades in silence, and, lifting his tear- 
stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves 
that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his 
brow and begins the slow and painful journey. 

What does he find — let me ask you — what does he 
find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against 
overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as 
surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and 
beautiful ? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devas- 
tated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, 
his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social sys- 
tem, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people 
without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the 
burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by 
defeat, his very traditions are gone. Without money, 
credit, employment, material, or training, and, besides all 
this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met 
human intelligence — the establishing of a status for the 
vast body of his liberated slaves. 

What does he do, this hero in gray with a heart of 
gold ? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair ? Not 
for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his 
prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was 
never before so overwhelming, never was restoration 
swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into 
the furrow ; horses that had charged Federal guns 
marched before the plow ; and fields that ran red with 



192 Speaker and Header. 

human blood in April were green with the harvest in 
June. 

But what is the sum of our work ? We have found 
out that the free negro counts more than he did as a 
slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop, 
and made it free to white and black. We have sowed 
towns and cities in the place of theories, and put busi- 
ness above politics. 

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her 
soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light 
of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrill- 
ing with the consciousness of growing power and pros- 
perity. As she stands upright, full statured and equal, 
among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air 
and looking out upon the expanded horizon, she under- 
stands that her emancipation came because, through the 
inscrutable wisdom of God, her honest purpose was 
crossed and her brave armies were beaten. 

% 

LOWELL'S INDEPENDENCE IN POLITICS. 1 

George William Curtis. 

With his lofty patriotism and his extraordinary public 
conscience, James Russell Lowell was distinctively the 
Independent in politics. He was an American and a 
republican citizen. He saw clearly that, while the gov- 
ernment of a republic must be a government by party, 

1 From Orations a fid Addresses. Vol. Ill, pages 3SS, 389. Copy- 
right by Harper & Brothers. 



American History. 193 

yet that independence of party is much more vitally 
essential in a republic than fidelity to party. He acted 
with parties, as every citizen must act, if he acts at all. 
But the notion that a voter is a traitor to one party when 
he votes with another was as ludicrous to him as the 
assertion that it is treason to the White Star steamers 
to take passage in a Cunarder. When he would know 
his public duty, Lowell turned within, not without. He 
listened, not for the roar of the majority in the street, 
but for the still small voice in his own breast. For 
while the method of republican government is party, its 
basis is individual conscience and common sense. 



THE DEATH OF GARFIELD. 1 

James G, Blaine. 

On the morning of Saturday, July 2, President Gar- 
field was a contented and happy man — not in *an ordi- 
nary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. And 
surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or 
triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning Gar- 
field may well have been a happy man. No foreboding 
of evil haunted him ; no premonition of danger clouded 
his sky. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident 
in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The 
next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary 
weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. 

1 From Political Discussions. Pages 523-525. The Henry Bill Pub- 
lishing Company. Copyright by James G. Blaine. 



194 Speaker and Reader. 

Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For 
no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wicked- 
ness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the 
full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspira- 
tions, its victories, into the visible presence of death ; 
and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short 
moment in w^hich, stunned and dazed, he could give up 
life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days 
of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not 
less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and 
calm courage, he looked into his open grave. 

What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes whose 
lips may tell — what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, 
high ambition, what sundering of household ties ! Behind 
him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining 
friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, 
rich hon'ors of her early toil and tears ; the wife of his 
youth, whose whole life lay in his ; the little boys not 
yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic ; the fair 
young daughter ; the sturdy sons, just springing into 
closest companionship, claiming every day, and every day 
rewarding, a father's love and care ; and in his heart the 
eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him 
desolation and great darkness ! And his soul was not 
shaken. 

As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea 
returned. The stately mansion of power had been to 
him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be 
taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling 
air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, 
silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer 



American History. 195 

to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as 
God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within 
sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face 
tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wist- 
fully upon the ocean's changing wonders ; on its fair 
sails, whitening in the morning light ; on its restless 
waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the 
noonday sun ; on the red clouds of evening, arching low 
to the horizon ; on the serene and shining pathway of 
the stars. 

Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic mean- 
ing which only the rapt and parting soul may know. 
Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world 
he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, 
and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the 
eternal morning. 

% 

CAPTAIN ALLYN CAPRON OF THE 
ROUGH RIDERS. 1 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Captain Allyn Capron was on the whole the best 
soldier in the regiment of the Rough Riders. He was 
the ideal of what an American regular army officer 
should be. He was the fifth in descent from father to 
son who had served in the army of the United States, 
and in body and mind alike he was fitted to play his part 
to perfection. Tall and lithe, a remarkable boxer and 

1 From The Rough Riders. Pages 18, 19, 95. Copyright, 1899, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



196 Speaker and Reader. 

walker, a first-class rider and shot, with yellow hair and 
piercing blue eyes, he looked what he was, the archetype 
of the fighting man. He had under him one of the two 
companies from the Indian Territory ; and he so soon im- 
pressed himself upon the wild spirit of his followers, that 
he got them ahead in discipline faster than any other 
troop in the regiment. His ceaseless effort was so to 
train them, care for them, and inspire them as to bring 
their fighting efficiency to the highest possible pitch. 
He required instant obedience, and tolerated not the 
slightest evasion of duty ; but his mastery of his art was 
so thorough, and his performance of his own duty so 
rigid, that he won at once not merely their admiration, 
but that soldierly affection so readily given by the man 
in the ranks to the superior who cares for his men and 
leads them fearlessly in battle. At the very outset of 
active service Captain Capron, leading the advance 
guard in person, displaying equal coolness and courage 
in the way that he handled them, was struck, and died 
a few minutes afterwards, as gallant a man as ever wore 
uniform. 

% 

THE ROUGH RIDERS. 1 

Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The Rough Riders, enlisted, officered, disciplined, and 
equipped in fifty days, are a very typical American regi- 
ment. Most of the men come from Arizona, New Mexico, 

1 From The War with Spain. Pages 114, 115. Copyright by 
Harper & Brothers. 



American History. 197 

and Oklahoma, where the troops were chiefly raised. 
There are many cowboys, many men of the plains, 
hunters, pioneers, and ranchmen, to whom the perils and 
exposure of frontier life are a twice-told tale. Among 
them can be found more than twoscore civilized but 
full-blooded Indians. Then there are boys from the 
farms and towns of the far western territories. Then, 
again, strangest mingling of all, there are a hundred or 
more troopers from the East — graduates of Yale and 
Harvard, members of the New York and Boston clubs, 
men of wealth and leisure and large opportunities. 
They are men who have loved the chase of big game, 
football, and all the sports which require courage and 
strength, and are spiced with danger. All have the 
spirit of adventure strong within them, and they are 
there in Cuba because they seek perils, because they are 
patriotic, because they believe every gentleman owes a 
debt to his country, and this is the time to pay it. 

All these men, drawn from so many sources, all so 
American, all so nearly soldiers in their life and habits, 
have been roughly, quickly, and effectively formed into 
a fighting regiment by the skillful discipline of Leonard 
Wood, their colonel, a surgeon of the line who wears a 
medal of honor won in campaigns against the Apaches ; 
and by the inspiration of Theodore Roosevelt, their 
lieutenant-colonel, who has laid down a high place in the 
administration at Washington, and come hither to Cuba 
because thus only can he live up to his ideal of conduct 
by offering his life to his country when war has come. 

% 



1 98 Speaker and Reader. 

ADDRESS TO THE ROUGH RIDERS. 1 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Now here 's a thing I want to warn you against : 
Don't get gay and pose as heroes. Don't go back and 
lie on your laurels ; they '11 wither. The world will be 
kind to you for about ten days, and then it will say, 
"He's spoiled by the fame of the regiment in Cuba." 
Don't think you have got to have the best of everything, 
and don't consider yourselves as martyrs in the past 
tense. A martyr came to see me to-day. He had n't 
had any milk for a whole day. I said to him : " Oh, you 
poor thing ! " and he went away. I hope he felt better. 
What I want of all of you is to get right out and fight 
your battles in the world as bravely as you fought the 
nation's battles in Cuba. 

% 

THE BATTLE OF SANTIAGO. 2 

Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The American people will always remember that hot 
summer morning and the anxiety that overspread the 
land. They will always see the American ships rolling 
lazily on the long seas, and the sailors just going to 

1 The occasion of this address is described in The Rough Riders. 
Page 225. 

2 From The War zvith Spain. Pages 149, 150. Copyright by 
Harper & Brothers. 



American History. 199 

Sunday inspection. Then comes the long, thin trail of 
smoke drawing nearer the harbor's mouth. The ships 
see it, and we can hear the cheers ring out, for the 
enemy is coming, and the American sailor rejoices 
mightily to know that the battle is set. There is no 
need of signals, no need of orders. The patient, long- 
watching admiral has given direction for every chance 
that may befall. Every ship is in place ; every ship 
rushes forward, closing in upon the enemy, fiercely 
pouring shells from broadside and turret. There is the 
Gloucester firing her little shots at the great cruisers, 
and then driving down to grapple with the torpedo 
boats. There are the Spanish ships, already mortally 
hurt, running along the shore, shattered and breaking 
under the fire of the Indiana, the Iowa, and the Texas ; 
there is the Brooklyn racing by to head the fugitives, 
and the Oregon dealing death-strokes as she rushes for- 
ward, forging to the front, and leaving her mark every- 
where as she goes. On they go, driving through the 
water, firing steadily and ever getting closer, and pres- 
ently the Spanish cruisers, helpless, burning, twisted 
wrecks of iron, are piled along the shore, and we see 
the younger officers and the men of their victorious 
ships periling their lives to save their beaten enemies. 
We see Wainwright on the Gloucester as eager in res- 
cue as he was swift in fight. We hear Philip cry out, 
" Don't cheer. The poor devils are dying." We watch 
Evans as he hands back the sword to the wounded 
Eulate, and then writes in his report : "I cannot express 
my admiration for my magnificent crew. So long as 
the enemy showed his flag, they fought like American 



200 Speaker and Reader. 

seamen ; but when the flag came down, they were as 
gentle and tender as American women." They all stand 
out. to us, these gallant figures, from admiral to seamen, 
with an intense human interest, fearless in fight, brave 
and merciful in the hour of victory. 

THE BATTLE OF MANILA. 1 

Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The American fleet had passed the dreaded forts 
at the entrance, and was in the bay of Manila. The 
moment had come. It came, fortunately, to a man who 
knew exactly what he meant to do. Commodore Dewey 
had his plan thoroughly laid out, and now proceeded 
to carry it into execution. The fleet moved silently and 
steadily down toward Cavite. Suddenly, just ahead of 
the flagship, there came a quivering shock and a great 
column of water leaped into the air. The dreaded 
mines were really there then, and the fleet was upon 
them ; but no ship swerved, no man stirred, and, as 
sometimes happens, the brave were favored, and this 
was the last of the Spanish torpedoes. Closer and 
closer they came, until at last the distance was but little 
over five thousand yards. " If you are ready, Gridley, 
you may fire," said the commodore to the captain of the 
Olympia. Five times in all did the American ships 
turn and move past their opponents, each time closer, 

1 From The War with Spain. Pages 54-60. Copyright by Harper 
& Brothers. 



American History, 201 

and each time with a more deadly broadside. There 
had been now two hours' hot work under the rising 
tropical sun, and at quarter before eight the commodore 
ran up the signals to cease firing and follow the flag- 
ship. The Spanish, battered as they were, set up a 
cheer as they saw their foe withdraw to the other side 
of the bay. There was a good rest for the crews, a 
hearty breakfast eaten quite at leisure, an examination 
of all guns, a fresh supply of ammunition brought up, 
and after three hours thus occupied, off the fleet went 
for a second and last assault. This time the work was 
more direct. The Spanish fleet was completely de- 
stroyed. The shore batteries w r ere silenced one after 
another. They held out longest at Cavite, but a last 
and well-placed shell entered the arsenal magazine, a 
terrific explosion followed, the batteries all fell silent, 
and the white flag went up on the citadel. The battle 
of Manila had been fought and won. 

THE RIGHT OF THE FILIPINOS TO 
INDEPENDENCE.! 

George F. Hoar. 

The Filipinos have from the beginning desired inde- 
pendence, and desire it now. 

This desire was communicated to our commanders 
when they gave them arms, accepted their aid, and 
brought Aguinaldo from his exile when he was put in 

1 From Lettei- to the Bostoti Herald, January 2, 1900. 



202 Speaker and Reader. 

command of thirty thousand Filipino soldiers, who were 
already in arms and organized. 

The people of the Philippine Islands, before we fired 
upon their troops, had delivered their own land from 
Spain, with the single exception of the town of Manila, 
and they hemmed in the Spanish troops on land by a 
line extending from water to water. 

We could not have captured the Spanish garrison, 
which was done by an arrangement beforehand, upon a 
mere show of resistance, but for the fact that they were 
so hemmed in by Aguinaldo's forces and could not 
retreat beyond the range and fire of the guns of our 
fleet. 

During all this period from the beginning to the final 
conflict, the Filipinos were repeatedly informing our gov- 
ernment that they desired their freedom, and they were 
never informed of any purpose on our part to subdue 
them. 

They were fit for independence. They had churches, 
libraries, works of art, and education. They were better 
educated than many American communities within the 
memory of some of us. They were eager and ambitious 
to learn. They were governing their entire island, 
except Manila, in order and quiet, with municipal gov- 
ernments, courts of justice, schools, and a complete con- 
stitution resting upon the consent of the people. They 
were better fitted for self-government than any country 
on the American continent south of us, from the Rio 
Grande to Cape Horn ; or than San Domingo or Hayti 
when these countries, respectively, achieved their inde- 
pendence ; and are fitter for self-government than some 



American History. 203 

of them are now. They are now as fit for self-govern- 
ment as was Japan when she was welcomed into the 
family of nations. 

The outbreak of hostilities was not their fault, but 
ours. A patrol, not a hostile military force, approached 
a small village between the lines of the two armies ; a 
village on the American side of the line of demarcation, 
to which some of our soldiers had been moved in dis- 
regard of the rule applicable to all cases of truce. When 
this patrol approached this town it was challenged. How 
far the Filipinos understood our language, or how far 
our pickets understood the reply that they made in 
their own language, does not appear. But we fired 
upon them first. The fire was returned from their 
lines. Thereupon it was returned again from us, and 
several Filipinos were killed. As soon as Aguinaldo 
heard of it he sent a message to General Otis saying 
that the firing was without his knowledge and against his 
will ; that he deplored it, and that he desired hostilities 
to cease and would withdraw his troops to any distance 
General Otis should desire. To which the American gen- 
eral replied that, as the fighting had begun, it must go on. 

I do not know what other men may think, or what 
other men may say. But there is not a drop of blood 
in my veins, there is not a feeling in my heart that does 
not respect a weak people struggling with a strong one. 

When Patrick Henry was making his great speech 
in the old court house in Virginia, ending with the 
words, " Give me liberty, or give me death," he was 
interrupted by somebody with a shout of " treason." 
He finished his sentence, and replied, as every school- 



204 Speaker and Reader. 

boy knows : "If this be treason, make the most of it." 
I am unworthy to loose the latchet of the shoes of 
Patrick Henry. But I claim to love human liberty as 
well as he did, and I believe the love of human liberty 
will never be held to be treason by Massachusetts. 

I am a son of Massachusetts. For more than three- 
score years and ten I have sat at her dear feet. I have 
seen the light from her beautiful eyes. I have heard 
high counsel from her lips. She has taught me to love 
liberty, to stand by the weak against the strong, when 
the rights of the weak are in peril ; she has led me to 
believe that if I do this, however humbly, however im- 
perfectly, and whatever other men may say, I shall have 
her approbation, and shall be deemed not unworthy of 
her love. Other men will do as they please. But as 
for me, God helping me, I can do no otherwise. 

% 

THE SECRET OF THE VICTORY AT 
MANILA. 1 

Henry Cabot Lodge. 

The great secret of the victory at Manila was in the 
accuracy and rapidity of the American gunners. The 
American fire was delivered with such volume, precision, 
and concentration that the Spanish fire was actually 
smothered, and became wholly wild and ineffective. 
This great quality was not accidental, but due to skill, 

1 From The War with Spain. Pages 66, 6j. Copyright by Harper 
& Brothers. 



American History. 205 

practice, and natural aptitude. In addition to this tradi- 
tional skill was the genius of the commander, backed by 
the fighting capacity of his captains and crews. True 
to the great principle of Nelson and Farragut, Dewey 
went straight after his enemy, to fight the hostile fleet 
wherever found. In the darkness he went boldly into 
an unfamiliar harbor, past powerful batteries, over mines 
the extent and danger of which he did not and could 
not know. As soon as dawn came, he fell upon the 
Spanish fleet, supported as it was by shore batteries, 
and utterly destroyed it. The Spanish empire in the 
East crumbled before his guns, and the great city 
and harbor of Manila fell helplessly into his hands. All 
this was done without the loss of a man or serious 
injury to a ship. The most rigid inspection fails to 
discover a mistake. There can be nothing better than 
perfection of workmanship, and this Dewey and his~ 
officers and men showed. The completeness of the 
result, which is the final test, gives Manila a great place 
in the history of naval battles, and writes the name of 
George Dewey high up among the greatest of victorious 
admirals. 

% 

OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE ORIENT. 1 

Albert J. Beveridge. 

The Philippines are ours forever, " territory belong- 
ing to the United States," as the constitution calls 
them. And just beyond the Philippines are China's 

1 From Speech in the United States Senate, January 9, 1900. 



206 Speaker and Reader. 

illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either. 
We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We 
will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We 
will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, 
trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. 

This island empire is the last land left in all the 
oceans. If it should prove a mistake to abandon it, 
the blunder once made would be irretrievable. If it 
proves a mistake to hold it, the error can be corrected 
when we will ; every other progressive nation stands 
ready to relieve us. 

But to hold it will be no mistake. Our largest trade 
henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. 
China is our natural customer. The Philippines give us 
a base at the door of all the East. The power that rules 
the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. 
And, with the Philippines, that power is and will for- 
ever be the American republic. 

It will be hard for Americans who have not studied 
them to understand the people. They are a barbarous 
race, modified by three centuries of contact with a deca- 
dent race. The Filipino is the South Sea Malay, put 
through a process of three hundred years of superstition 
in religion, dishonesty in dealing, disorder in habits of 
industry and cruelty, caprice and corruption in govern- 
ment. It is barely possible that one thousand men in 
all the archipelago are capable of self-government in 
the Anglo-Saxon sense. My own belief is that there 
are not one hundred men among them who compre- 
hend what Anglo-Saxon self-government even means ; 
and there are over five million people to be governed. 



American History, 207 

A lasting peace can be secured only by overwhelming 
forces in ceaseless action until universal and absolutely 
final defeat is inflicted on the enemy. To halt before 
every armed force, every guerrilla band opposing us, is 
dispersed or exterminated will prolong hostilities and 
leave alive the seeds of perpetual insurrection. Even 
then we should not treat. To treat at all is to admit 
that we are wrong. 

Our mistake has not been cruelty ; it has been kind- 
ness. It has been the application to Spanish Malays 
of methods appropriate to New England. Every device 
of mercy, every method of conciliation has been em- 
ployed by the peace-loving President of the American 
republic to the amazement of nations experienced in 
Oriental revolt. We smiled at intolerable insult and 
insolence until the lips of every native in Manila were 
curling in ridicule for the cowardly Americans. We 
refrained from all violence until their armed bravos 
crossed the lines in violation of agreement. Then our 
sentry shot the offender, and he should have been court- 
martialed had he failed to shoot. That shot was the 
most fortunate of the war. For Aguinaldo had planned 
the attack upon us for two nights later ; our sentry's 
shot brought this attack prematurely on. He had 
arranged for an uprising in Manila to massacre all 
Americans, the plans for which, in Sandico's handwrit- 
ing, are in our possession ; this shot made that awful 
scheme impossible. We did not strike till they attacked 
us in force, without provocation ; this left us no alterna- 
tive but war or evacuation. 

But, senators, it would be better to abandon this com- 



208 Speaker and Reader. 

bined garden and Gibraltar of the Pacific, and count our 
blood and treasure already spent a profitable loss, than 
to apply any academic arrangement of self-government 
to these children. They are not capable of self-govern- 
ment. How could they be ? They are not of a self- 
governing race. They are Orientals, Malays, instructed 
by Spaniards in the latter' s worst estate. They know 
nothing of practical government except as they have 
witnessed the weak, corrupt, cruel, and capricious rule 
of Spain. The great majority simply do not understand 
any participation in any government whatever. 

Example for decades will be necessary to instruct them 
in American ideas and methods of administration. Ex- 
ample, example ; always example ; this alone will teach 
them. 

% 



Part III. 
PATRIOTISM. 

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. 1 

Edward Everett Hale. 

[Philip Nolan was a young lieutenant in the United States 
army. Because of intimacy with Aaron Burr, he was banished 
from his country and condemned to live on a government vessel 
the rest of his life. There he was not allowed even to hear the 
name of his native land.] 

I first came to understand anything about " the man 
without a country " one day when we overhauled a dirty 
little schooner which had slaves on board. An officer 
was sent to take charge of her, and, after a few minutes, 
he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be 
sent him who could talk Portuguese. But none of the 
officers did ; and just as the captain was sending forward 
to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and 
said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, 
as he understood the language. The captain thanked 
him, fitted out another boat with him, and in this boat it 
was my luck to go. 

There were not a great many of the negroes ; most of 
them were out of the hold and swarming all round the 

1 From The Man Without a Country. Pages 30-35. Roberts 
Brothers. Copyright, 1898, by Edward Everett Hale. 

209 



210 Speaker and Reader. 

dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan. 
" Tell them they are free, Nolan," said Vaughan ; " and 
tell them I will take them all to Cape Palmas." 

Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of 
most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was ; that 
is, they would be eternally separated from home there. 
And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly 
said: "Ah, non Palmas!" The drops stood on poor 
Nolan's white forehead as he hushed the men down and 
said: " He says, 'Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take us 
home, take us to our own country, take us to our own 
house, take us. to our own pickaninnies and our own 
women.' He says he has an old father and mother who 
will die if they do not see him. And this one says," 
choked out Nolan, "that he has not heard a word from 
his home in six months." 

Even the negroes stopped howling as they saw Nolan's 
agony and Vaughan 's almost equal agony of sympathy. 
As quick as he could get words Vaughan said : — 

" Tell them yes, yes, yes ; tell them they shall go to 
the Mountains of the Moon if they will." 

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then 
they all fell to kissing him again. 

But he could not stand it long ; and getting Vaughan 
to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into our 
boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men 
gave way, he said to me : — 

" Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without 
a family, without a home, and without a country. And 
if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing 
that shall put a bar between you and your family, your 



Patriotism. 2 1 1 

home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to take 
you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick by 
your family, boy ; forget you have a self, while you do 
everything for them. Think of your home, boy ; write 
and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer 
to your thought the farther you have to travel from it ; 
and rush back to it when you are free, as that poor black 
slave is doing now. And for your country, boy," and 
the words rattled in his throat, " and for that flag," and 
he pointed to the ship, " never dream a dream but of 
serving her as she bids you, though the service carry 
you through a thousand hells. Xo matter what happens 
to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, 
never look at another flag, never let a night pass but 
you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that 
behind all these men you have to do with, behind 
officers, and Government, and people even, there is the 
Country herself, your Country, and that you belong to 
Her as you belong to your own mother." 



THE MEANING OF OUR FLAG. 1 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him : 
It means just what Concord and Lexington meant, what 
Bunker Hill meant. It means the whole glorious Revo- 

1 From Freedom and War. Pages 114, 117, 118. Copyright by 
Ticknor & Fields. 



212 Speaker and Reader. 

lutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of In- 
dependence meant. It means all that the Constitution 
of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for 
happiness, meant. 

Under this banner rode Washington and his armies. 
Before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on 
the highlands at West Point. When Arnold would 
have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious 
legacies, his night was turned into day and his treachery 
was driven away by the beams of light from this starry 
banner. 

It cheered our army, driven out from around New 
York, and in their painful pilgrimages through New 
Jersey. This banner streamed in light over the soldiers' 
heads at Valley Forge and at Morristown. It crossed 
the waters rolling with ice at Trenton, and when its 
stars gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new 
day of hope dawned on the despondency of this nation. 

Our flag carries American ideas, American history, 
and American feelings. Beginning with the colonies, 
and coming down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in 
its glorious insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly 
this supreme idea : divine right of liberty in man. Every 
color means liberty ; every thread means liberty ; every 
form of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty 
— not lawlessness, not license, but organized, institu- 
tional liberty — liberty through law, and laws for liberty ! 

This American flag was the safeguard of liberty. 
Not an atom of crown was allowed to go into its in- 
signia. Not a symbol of authority in the ruler was per- 
mitted to go into it. It was an ordinance of liberty by 



Patriotis?n. 2 1 3 

the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, 
and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the 
end of time ! 

% 

THE FLAG. 1 
Charles F. Dole. 

What does the flag tell us as often as we see it ? It 
tells us that no one in America is alone or friendless. 
There is a mighty government, with its laws and its 
officers, that will not let any one be oppressed. Once 
men could make slaves of their fellows. Nowhere 
to-day under our flag can any man be enslaved. The 
flag is the sign of our pledge to befriend one another. 

What can the flag do for us if we journey abroad and 
visit foreign lands ? It tells us that our government will 
watch over our safety. We have treaties with other 
peoples promising us that their laws and courts and 
police and soldiers will protect us equally with their own 
people. Once strangers were liable to abuse wherever 
they traveled. Now, wherever our flag goes, it is a 
sign that our government will never forget us. 

The flag is not merely a sign that the government will 
help and protect us at home and abroad. It is also a 
call and a command to every one of us to stand by the 
government. 

The truth is, the government depends upon every one 
of us. When we look at the flag, we promise anew that 

1 From The Young Citizen. Pages 192, 193. Copyright by D. C. 
Heath & Co. 



214 Speaker and Header. 

we will stand by the common country ; we will try to be 
true and faithful citizens. We promise to do our work 
so well as to make the whole country richer and happier ; 
we promise to live such useful lives that the next gen- 
eration of children will have a nobler country to live in 
than we have had. We scorn, when we see the flag, to 
be idle and mean, or false and dishonest. We devote 
ourselves to America, to make it the happiest land that 
the sun ever shone on. 



WHO PATRIOTS ARE. 1 
Charles F. Dole. 

Who are the patriots in America ? No doubt many 
would answer at once, " The patriots are the men who 
fight for their country ; the men who stood with Warren 
on Bunker Hill, and with Sumter and Marion and 
Morgan in the Carolinas ; the men who made Corn- 
wallis surrender at Yorktown ; the sailors who fought 
alongside of Paul Jones ; the sailors on the good ship 
Constitution ; the soldiers who followed Grant to Rich- 
mond ; the men in Farragut's fleet ; the men who rode 
with Custer on the plains of the far West, Dewey and 
his men at Manila, Roosevelt and Hobson at Santiago, 
— all these were pat riots.' ' 

There is something wrong in thinking that patriots 
must be soldiers and sailors. What shall we say of the 

1 From The Young Citizen. Pages 34-43. Copyright by D. C. 
Heath & Co. 



Patriotism. 2 1 5 

women who do not fight ? What shall we call Martha 
Washington, who had to stay at home while her husband 
was at Valley Forge ? What shall we call the thousands 
of women who sent their brothers and sons to help 
Washington and Grant ? Were not these women as 
good patriots as their husbands and brothers ? Indeed 
the women often had the hardest time. They had to 
carry on the farms, while the men were away ; they 
suffered from anxiety and loneliness. For many a brave 
woman it would have been easier to die herself than to 
send her boy away to die with wounds or with fever. 
We must surely call all brave women patriots who love 
their country well enough to let their husbands and sons 
go to war for the sake of the flag. 

We must not forget a multitude of men who, even in 
the War of the Revolution and in the great Civil War, 
were never soldiers or sailors, and yet were patriots. 
There was Benjamin Franklin, for instance. He did not 
fight, but who loved America better than he ? If it had 
not been for his services at the French king's court, no 
one knows how many weary years the war of Independ- 
ence might have lasted. 

There was Samuel Adams ; who ever heard of his 
fighting a battle ? But he was as brave and sturdy a 
patriot as any soldier could be. There was Washington's 
friend, Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who helped get 
money to pay the soldiers. 

To be a patriot is to love one's country ; it is to be 
ready and willing, if need comes, to die for the country, 
as a good seaman would die to save his ship and his 
crew. 



216 Speaker and Reader. 

Yes ! To love our country, to work so as to make it 
strong and rich, to support its government, to obey its 
laws, to pay fair taxes into the treasury, to treat our 
fellow- citizens as we like to be treated ourselves, — this 
is to be good American patriots. 

% 

THE ARMY OF PEACE. 1 

Charles F. Dole. 

The thousands of men and women who serve our 
government form an army ; but it is an army of peace 
and not of war. It is not to frighten men, but to help 
and benefit them. It is not for the good of Americans 
alone, but for the good of all people. 

What kind of a man do we need for a soldier ? He 
must be brave and obedient ; he must not serve for pay, 
or for a pension, or to get honor for himself, or in order 
to be promoted to a higher office. He must serve, as 
Washington and Grant served, simply for the sake of 
helping his country. They were not soldiers in order 
to get their living out of the country, but because the 
country needed them. They were soldiers for the sake 
of the welfare of the people. 

The country needs the same kind of men for its army 
of peace. It wants obedient and faithful men to keep 
its accounts and to carry its mails. It wants kind and 
courteous men in its offices, who will do their best for 

1 From The Young Citizen. Pages 188, 189. Copyright by D. C. 
Heath & Co. 



Patriotism. 2 1 7 

the convenience of its people. It wants fearless and 
upright judges who will do no wrong. It wants friendly 
men in the Indian agencies, to help the Indians to become 
civilized. It wants men of courage in its lighthouses 
and at the life-saving stations. Our government cannot 
really bear to have mean and selfish men anywhere, but 
it needs men, as good as the very best soldiers, who are 
in its service for the sake of their country. 

What does a good soldier desire more than anything 
else ? He desires that the cause of his country shall 
succeed. What does every good American wish most 
of all ? He wishes that his work may make his country 
richer and happier. He wishes, like Abraham Lincoln, 
to leave his country better and nobler for his having 
served her. 

THE LOVE OF COUNTRY. 1 

Walter Scott. 

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ! 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 

1 From The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto VI, stanza I. 



218 Speaker and Header. 

Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 

The wretch, concentred all in self, 

Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 

And, doubly dying, shall go down 

To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 

Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 

THE ESSENCE OF PATRIOTISM. 1 

William Jennings Bryan. 

The essence of patriotism lies in a willingness to 
sacrifice for one's country, just as true greatness finds 
expression, not in blessings enjoyed, but in good bestowed. 
Read the words inscribed on the monuments reared by 
loving hands to the heroes of the past ; they do not 
speak of wealth inherited, or of honors bought, or of 
hours in leisure spent, but of service done. Twenty 
years, forty years, a life, or life's most precious blood, 
he yielded up for the welfare of his fellows — this is the 
simple story which proves that it is now, and ever has 
been, more blessed to give than to receive. 

The officer was a patriot when he gave his ability to 
his country and risked his name and fame upon the 
fortunes of war ; the private soldier was a patriot when 
he took his place in the ranks and offered his body as a 
bulwark to protect the flag ; the wife was a patriot when 
she bade her husband farewell and gathered about her 

1 From an address at Arlington Cemetery, Washington, D. C, May 
30, 1894. 



Patriotism. 219 

the little brood over which she must exercise both a 
mother's and a father's care ; and, if there can be degrees 
in patriotism, the mother stood first among the patriots 
when she gave to the nation her sons, the divinely 
appointed support of her declining years, and, as she 
brushed the tears away, thanked God that he had given 
her the strength to rear strong and courageous sons for 
the battlefield. 

To us who were born too late to prove upon the 
battlefield our courage and our loyalty, it is gratifying 
to know that opportunity will not be wanting to show 
our love of country. In a nation like ours, where the 
government is founded upon the principle of equality 
and derives its just powers from the consent of the 
governed ; in a land like ours, where every citizen is a 
sovereign and where no one cares to wear a crown, — 
every year presents a battlefield and every day brings 
forth occasion for the display of patriotism. 

THE PATRIOT 1 

Robert Browning. 

It was roses, roses, all the way, 

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad : 

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, 
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 

A year ago on this very day. 

1 From Browning's Poetical Works. Page 251. Copyright by Hough- 
ton. Mirrlin & Co. 



220 Speaker and Reader. 

The air broke into a mist with bells, 

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 

Had I said: " Good folk, mere noise repels — 
But give me your sun from yonder skies!" 

They had answered : " And afterward, what else ? 

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 
To give it my loving friends to keep ! 

Naught man could do, have I left undone : 
And you see my harvest, what I reap 

This very day, now a year is run. 

There 's nobody on the house-tops now — 
Just a palsied few at the windows set ; 

For the best of the sight is, all allow, 
At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet, 

By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 
A rope cuts both my wrists behind ; 

And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 
For they fling, whoever has a mind, 

Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 

Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead. 
" Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 

Me?" — God might question; now instead, 
'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so. 

% 



Patriotism. 221 

ARNOLD WINKELREID. 

James Montgomery. 

"Make way for Liberty!" — he cried; 
Made way for Liberty, and died ! 

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, 

A living wall, a human wood ! 

Impregnable their front appears, 

All horrent with projected spears. 

Opposed to these, a hovering band 

Contended for their fatherland ; 

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke 

From manly necks the ignoble yoke : 

Marshaled once more at Freedom's call, 

They came to conquer or to fall. 

And now the work of life and death 

Hung in the passing of a breath ; 

The fire of conflict burned within ; 

The battle trembled to begin ; 

Yet, while the Austrian s held their ground, 

Point for assault w T as nowhere found ; 

Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed, 

The unbroken line of lances blazed ; 

That line 'twere suicide to meet 

And perish at their tyrants' feet. 

How could they rest within their graves, 

To leave their homes the haunts of slaves ? 

Would they not feel their children tread 

With clanking chains, above their head ? 



222 Speaker and Reader. 

It must not be : this day, this hour, 
Annihilates the invaders' power ! 
All Switzerland is in the field, 
She will not fly ; she cannot yield ; 
She must not fall ; her better fate 
Here gives her an immortal date. 
Few were the numbers she could boast ; 
But every freeman was a host, 
And felt as 't were a secret known 
That one should turn the scale alone ; 
While each unto himself was he 
On whose sole arm hung victory. 

It did depend on one, indeed ; 

Behold him — Arnold Winkelreid ; 

There sounds not to the trump of Fame 

The echo of a nobler name. 

Unmarked, he stood among the throng, 

In rumination deep and long, 

Till you might see, with sudden grace, 

The very thought come o'er his face ; 

And, by the motion of his form, 

Anticipate the bursting storm ; 

And, by the uplifting of his brow, 

Tell where the bolt would strike and how. 

But 't was no sooner thought than done — 
The field was in a moment won ! 
" Make way for Liberty ! " he cried ; 
Then ran with arms extended wide, 
As if his dearest friend to clasp ; 
Ten spears he swept within his grasp. 



Patriotism. 223 

"Make way for Liberty!" he cried; 
Their keen points met from side to side, 
He bowed amongst them like a tree, 
And thus made way for Liberty. 

Swift to the breach his comrades fly — 

"Make way for Liberty!" they cry; 

And through the Austrian phalanx dart, 

As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart ; 

While, instantaneous as his fall, 

Rout, ruin, panic scattered all : 

An earthquake could not overthrow 

A city with a surer blow. 

Thus Switzerland again was free ; 
Thus Death made way for Liberty. 

% 

THE DUTY OF PUBLIC SERVICE. 1 

Lord Rosebery. 

What can I do, in however small way, to serve my 
country ? I will tell you what I consider the duty of 
every citizen. It is that you should keep a close and 
vigilant eye on public and municipal affairs ; that you 
should form intelligent opinions upon them ; that you 
should give help to the men who seem to you worthy 
of help, and oppose the men whom you think worthy of 
opposition. Keep this motive of public duty and public 

1 From Appreciations and Addresses. Pages 199, 202. John Lane. 



224 Speaker and Reader. 

service before you, for the sake of your country, and 
also on your own account. You will find it the most 
ennobling human motive that can guide your actions. 
And while you will help the country by observing it, you 
will also help yourselves. Life consists of only two 
certain parts, the beginning and the end — the birth and 
the grave. Between those two points lies the whole 
arena of human choice and human opportunity. You 
may embellish and consecrate it if you will, or you may 
let it lie stagnant and dead. But if you choose the 
better part, I believe that nothing will give your life so 
high a complexion as to study to do something for your 
country. 

% 

WHAT A MAN CAN DO FOR HIS TOWN 
OR CITY. 

Charles H. Parkhurst. 

People say, You can't do anything. You can. One 
man can chase a thousand ; we have the Almighty's 
word for it. I have done it. I am not bragging of it ; 
but I have done it. And any man can do it, be he 
Catholic, Republican, or Democrat, if he have the truth 
on his sides, dares to stand up and tell it, and when he 
has been knocked down once, gets up, and goes at it 
again. One man can chase a thousand. Let our earnest, 
fiery citizens once get but an inkling of what citizenship 
means, in its truest and innermost sense, and there is 
no wall of misrule too solidly constructed for it to over- 



Patriotism. 225 

throw; no " machine " of demagogism too elaborately 
wrought for it to smash. There is nothing that can 
stand in the way of virtue on fire. A fact you can 
misstate, a principle you can put under a false guise, 
but a man you cannot down ; that is to say, if he is a 
man who has grit, grace, and sleeps well o' nights. 

If any one wants to do something for his town or 
city, and asks me what he shall do, I answer : Get the 
facts ; state them ; stand up to them. 

% 

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 1 

George William Curtis. 

There have, indeed, been other republics, but they 
were founded upon other principles. There are repub- 
lics in Switzerland to-day a thousand years old. But 
they are pure democracies, not larger than the county in 
which we live, and wholly unlike our vast national and 
representative republic. Athens was a republic, but 
Marathon and Salamis, battles whose names are melo- 
dious in the history of liberty, were won by slaves. 
Rome was a republic, but slavery degraded it to an 
empire. Venice, Genoa, Florence were republican cities, 
but they were tyrants over subject neighbors and slaves 
of aristocrats at home. There were republics in Holland, 
honorable forever, because from them we received our 

1 From Orations and Addresses, Vol. Ill, pages 126, 127. Copy- 
right by Harper & Brothers. 



226 Speaker and Reader. 

common schools, the bulwark of American liberty ; but 
they, too, were republics of classes, not of the people. 
It was reserved for our fathers to build a republic upon 
a declaration of the equal rights of men ; to make the 
government as broad as humanity ; to found political 
institutions upon faith in human nature. The world 
stared and sneered. The difficulties and dangers were 
colossal. For more than eighty years that Declara- 
tion remained only a declaration of faith. But our eyes 
behold its increasing fulfillment. The sublime faith of 
the fathers is more and more the familiar fact of the 
children. The proud flag which floats over America 
to-day, as it is the bond of indissoluble union, so it is the 
seal of ever enlarging equality and ever surer justice. 

% 

THE DUTY OF NATURALIZED* CITIZENS. 1 

Richard Guenther. 

We know as well as any other class of American 
citizens where our duties belong. We will work for our 
country in time of peace, and fight for it in time of war, 
if a time of war should ever come. When I say our 
country, I mean, of course, our adopted country ; I mean 
the United States of America. After passing through 
the crucible of naturalization, we are no longer Germans ; 
we are Americans. Our attachment to America cannot 
be measured by the length of our residence here. We 

1 Quoted by Theodore Roosevelt in American Ideals. Page 33. 
Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



Patriotism. 227 

are Americans from the moment we touch the American 
shore until we are laid in American graves. We will 
fight for America whenever necessary. America, first, 
last, and all the time. America against Germany, 
America against the world ; always America. We are 
Americans. 

OUR DEBT TO THE NATION'S HEROES. 1 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Every feat of heroism makes us forever indebted to 
the man who performed it. The whole nation is better, 
the whole nation is braver, because Farragut, lashed 
in the rigging of the Hartford, forged past the forts and 
over the unseen death below, to try his wooden stem 
against the ironclad hull of the Confederate ram ; because 
Gushing pushed his little torpedo boat through the dark- 
ness to sink beside the sinking Albemarle. All daring 
and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune, all devo- 
tion to the ideal of honor and the glory of the flag make 
for a finer and nobler type of manhood. All of us lift 
our heads higher, because those of our countrymen 
whose trade it is to meet danger have met it well and 
bravely. All of us are poorer for every base or ignoble 
deed done by an American, for every instance of selfish- 
ness or weakness or folly on the part of the people as a 
whole. If ever we had to meet defeat at the hands of 
a foreign foe, or had to submit tamely to wrong or insult, 

1 From American Ideals. Pages 268, 269. Copyright by G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. 



228 Speaker and Reader. 

every man among us worthy of the name of American 
would feel dishonored and debased. On the other hand, 
the memory of every triumph won by Americans, by 
just so much helps to make each American nobler and 
better. Every man among us is more fit to meet the 
duties and responsibilities of citizenship, because of the 
perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed ; 
because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and 
the anguish through which, in the days that have gone, 
our forefathers moved on to triumph. 

% 

OUR HERITAGE FROM WASHINGTON 
AND LINCOLN. 1 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Without Washington we should probably never have 
won our independence of the British crown, and we 
should almost certainly have failed to become a great 
nation, remaining instead a cluster of jangling little 
communities. Without Lincoln we might perhaps have 
failed to keep the political unity we had won. Yet the 
nation's debt to these men is not confined to what it 
owes them for its material well-being, incalculable though 
this debt is. Beyond the fact that we are an independ- 
ent and united people, with half a continent as our 
heritage, lies the fact that every American is richer by 
the heritage of the noble deeds and noble words of 
Washington and Lincoln. 

1 From American Ideals. Pages 2, 3. Copyright by G. P. Putnam's 
Sons. 



Patriotism. 



229 



It is not only the country which these men helped to 
make and helped to save that is ours by inheritance ; we 
inherit also all that is best and highest in their charac- 
ters and in their lives. We inherit from Lincoln and 
from the might of Lincoln's generation not merely the 
freedom of those who once were slaves ; for we inherit 
also the fact of the freeing them, we inherit the glory 
and the honor and the wonder of the deed that was 
done, no less than the actual results of the deed when 
done. As men think over the real nature of the triumph 
then scored for humankind their hearts shall ever throb 
as they cannot over any victory won at less cost than 
ours. We are the richer for each grim campaign, for 
each hard-fought battle. We are the richer for valor 
displayed alike by those who fought so valiantly for the 
right and by those who, no less valiantly, fought for 
what they deemed the right. We have in us nobler 
capacities for what is great and good, because of the 
infinite woe and suffering, and because of the splendid 
ultimate triumph. 

% 

A VISION OF WAR. 1 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 

The past rises before me like a dream. Again we 
are in the great struggle for national life. We are with 
the soldiers when they enlist in the great army of free- 

1 From Prose-Poems. Pages 33-36. Copyright by C. P. Farrell, 
New York, N. Y. 



230 Speaker and Reader. 

dom. We see them part with those they love. Some 
are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with 
the maidens they adore. Others are bending over 
cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are re- 
ceiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting 
with mothers who hold them and press them to their 
hearts again and again, and say nothing. And some 
are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave 
words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts 
the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife 
standing in the door with the babe in her arms — stand- 
ing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a 
hand waves ; she answers by holding high in her loving 
arms the child. He is gone, and forever. 

We see them all as they march proudly away under 
the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild 
music of war — through the towns and across the 
prairies — down to the fields of glory, to do and to die 
for the eternal right. 

We go with them, one and all. We are by their side 
on all the gory fields — in all the hospitals of pain — on 
all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in 
the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with 
them in ravines running with blood, in the furrows of old 
fields. We are with them between contending hosts, 
unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly 
away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced 
by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, 
and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become 
iron, with nerves of steel. 

We are at home when the news comes that they are 



Patriotism. 231 

dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first 
sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed 
with the last grief. 

These heroes are dead. They died for liberty — they 
died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land 
they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless. 
Earth may run red with other wars ; they are at peace. 
In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found 
the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers 
living and dead : cheers for the living ; tears for the 
dead. 

% 

THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA. 1 
Francis H. Doyle. 

Last night, among his fellow roughs 

He jested, quaffed, and swore ; 
A drunken private of the Buffs, 

Who never looked before. 
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown, 

He stands in Elgin's place, 
Ambassador from Britain's crown 

And type of all her race. 

Poor, reckless, rude, low-borp, untaught, 

Bewildered and alone, 
A heart, with English instinct fraught, 

He yet can call his own. 

1 From The British Gitard and Other Poems. Macmillan & Co. 



232 Speaker and Reader. 

Ay, tear his body limb from limb, 

Bring cord, or axe, or flame ; 
He only knows that not through him 

Shall England come to shame. 

Far Kentish hop-fields round him seem'cl 

Like dreams to come and go ; 
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleam'd 

One sheet of living snow ; 
The smoke, above his father's door, 

In gray soft eddyings hung ; 
Must he then w^atch it rise no. more, 

Doom'd by himself, so young ? 

Yes, honor calls ! with strength like steel 

He put the vision by. 
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel, 

An English lad must die. 
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, 

With knee to man unbent, 
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, 

To his red grave he went. 

Vain, mightiest fleets, of iron framed ; 

Vain, those all-shattering guns ; 
Unless proud England keep, untamed, 

The strong heart of her sons. 
So let his name through Europe ring, 

A man of mean estate, 
Who died as firm as Sparta's king 

Because his soul was great. 



Patriotism. 233 



THE ROLL-CALL. 
Nathaniel G. Shepherd. 

"Corporal Green!" the orderly cried. 
"Here!" was the answer, loud and clear, 
From the lips of the soldier who stood near ; 

And "Here!" was the word the next replied. 

"Cyrus Drew!" — then a silence fell, — 
This time no answer followed the call ; 
Only his rear man had seen him fall, 

Killed or wounded, he could not tell. 

There they stood in the failing light, 

These men of battle with grave, dark looks, 
As plain to be read as open books, 

While slowlv gathered the shades of night. 

The fern on the hillsides was splashed with blood, 
And down in the corn, where the poppies grew, 
Were redder stains than the poppies knew ; 

And crimson-dyed was the river's flood. 

For the foe had crossed from the other side 
That day, in the face of a murderous fire 
That swept them down in its terrible ire. 

And their life-blood went to color the tide. 

"Herbert Kline!" At the call there came 
Two stalwart soldiers into the line, 
Bearing between them this Herbert Kline, 

Wounded and bleeding, to answer his name. 



234 Speaker and Reader. 

"Ezra Kerr!" — and a voice answered, " Here ! " 
" Hiram Kerr!" — but no man replied. 
They were brothers, these two ; the sad wind sighed, 

And a shudder crept through the cornfield near. 

"Ephraim Deane ! " — then a soldier spoke: 
"Deane carried our regiment colors," he said; 
" Where our ensign was shot, I left him dead, 

Just after the enemy wavered and broke. 

" Close to the roadside his body lies ; 

I paused a moment and gave him drink ; 

He murmured his mother's name, I think, 
And Death came with it, and closed his eyes." 

'T was a victory, yes, but it cost us dear, — 
For that company's roll, when called at night, 
Of a hundred men who went into the fight, 

Numbered but twenty that answered "Here!" 

% 

THE PICKET GUARD. 

Ethel Lynn Beers. 

"All quiet along the Potomac," they say, 

" Except now and then a stray picket 
Is shot as he walks on his beat, to and fro, 

By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 
'Tis nothing — a private or two, now and then, 

Will not count in the news of the battle ; 
Not an officer lost — only one of the men, 

Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle." 



Patriotism. 235 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ; 
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, 

Or the light of the watch-fires, are gleaming. 
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night -wind 

Through the forest leaves softly is creeping ; 
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, 

Keep guard — for the army is sleeping. 

There 's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread, 

As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, 
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed 

Far away in the cot on the mountain. 
His musket falls slack — his face, dark and grim, 

Grows gentle with memories tender, 
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep — 

For their mother — may Heaven defend her! 

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, 

That night, when the love yet unspoken 
Leaped up to his lips — when low-murmured vows 

Were pledged to be ever unbroken. 
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes, 

He dashes off tears that are welling, 
And gathers his gun closer up to its place 

As if to keep down the heart-swelling. 

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree — 

The footstep is lagging and weary ; 
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, 

Toward the shades of the forest so dreary. 



236 Speaker and Header. 

Hark ! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves ? 

Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing ? 
It looked like a rifle — " Ah ! Mary, good-bye!" 

And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. 

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 
No sound save the rush of the river ; 

While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead — 
The picket's off duty forever. 

THE SHIP OF STATE. 1 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 

What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 

'T is of the wave and not the rock : 

'T is but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

1 From The Building of the Ship. Longfellow *s Poetical Works. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Patriotism. 237 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 

In spite of false lights on the shore, 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 

• % 

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 
Julia Ward Howe. 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 

Lord ; 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of 

wrath are stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of His terrible 

swift sword ; 

His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 

camps ; 
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews 

and damps ; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and 

flaring lamps ; 

His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of 

steel : 
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my 

grace shall deal ; 



238 Speaker and Reader. 

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with 
his heel, 

Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never 
call retreat ; 

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment- 
seat ; 

O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, 
my feet ! 

Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the 

sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and 

me ; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make 

men free, 

While God is marching on. 

THE CAVALRY CHARGE. 

George Parsons Lathrop. 

" Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank. 

Their sharp, full cheer, from rank to rank, 

Rose joyously, with a willing breath — 

Rose like a greeting hail to death. 

Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed ; 

Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed ; 

Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow, 



Patriotism. 239 

In their faded coats of blue and yellow ; 
And above in the air, with an instinct true, 
Like a bird of war their pennon flew. 

With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds, 

And blades that shine like sunlit reeds, 

And strong, brown faces bravely pale 

For fear their proud attempt shall fail, 

Line after line the troopers came 

To the edge of the wood that was ringed with flame ; 

Rode in and sabred and shot — and fell ; 

Not one came back his wounds to tell. 

Line after line ; aye, whole platoons, 

Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons, 

By the maddened horses were onward borne 

And into the vortex flung trampled and torn. 

But over them, lying there, shattered and mute, 
What deep echo rolls ! 'T is a death-salute 
From the cannon in place ; for, heroes, you braved 
Your fate not in vain : the army was saved ! 

% 

MY MARYLAND. 

James Ryder Randall. 

The despot's heel is on thy shore, 

Maryland ! 
His torch is at thy temple door, 

Maryland ! 



240 Speaker and Reader. 

Avenge the patriotic gore 
That flecked the streets of Baltimore, 
And be the battle-queen of yore, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Hark to an exiled son's appeal, 

Maryland ! 
My Mother State, to thee I kneel, 

Maryland ! 
For life and death, for woe and weal, 
Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not cower in the dust, 

Maryland ! 
Thy beaming sword shall never rust, 

Maryland ! 
Remember Carroll's sacred trust, 
Remember Howard's warlike thrust, 
And all thy slumberers with the just, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Come ! 't is the red dawn of the day, 

Maryland ! 
Come with thy panoplied array, 

Maryland ! 
With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, 
With Watson's blood at Monterey, 
With fearless Lowe and dashing May, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 



Patriotism. 241 

Dear Mother, burst the tyrant's chain, 

Maryland ! 
Virginia should not call in vain, 

Maryland ! 
She meets her sisters on the plain, — 
Sic semper ! \ is the proud refrain 
That baffles minions back amain, 

Maryland ! 
Arise in majesty again, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong, 

Maryland ! 
Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, 

Maryland ! 
Come to thine own heroic throng 
Stalking with Liberty along, 
And chant thy dauntless slogan-song, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

I see the blush upon thy cheek, 

Maryland ! 
For thou wast ever bravely meek, 

Maryland ! 
But lo ! there surges forth a shriek 
From hill to hill, from creek to creek, 
Potomac calls to Chesapeake, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, 

Maryland ! 
Thou wilt not crook to his control, 

Maryland ! 



242 Speaker and Reader. 

Better the fire upon thee roll, 
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, 
Than crucifixion of the soul, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

% 

DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER. 

George Henry Boker. 

Close his eyes : his work is done ! 

What to him is friend or foeman, 
Rise of moon, or set of sun, 

Hand of man, or kiss of woman ? 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he cannot know : 
Lay him low ! 

As man may, he fought his fight, 

Proved his truth by his endeavor ; 
Let him sleep in solemn night, 
Sleep forever and forever ; 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he cannot know 
Lay him low ! 

Fold him in his country's stars, 

Roll the drum and fire the volley ! 

What to him are all our wars, 

What but death bemocking folly ? 



Patriotism. 243 

Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he cannot know : 
Lay him low ! 

Leave him to God's watching eye, 

Trust him to the hand that made him. 
Mortal love weeps idly by ; 

God alone has power to aid him. 
Lay him low, lay him low, 
In the clover or the snow ! 
What cares he ? he cannot know : 
Lay him low ! 

% 

OLD IRONSIDES. 1 
Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down, 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle-shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more ! 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 
Where knelt the vanquished foe, 

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 
And waves were white below, 

1 Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



244 Speaker and Reader. 

No more shall feel the victor's tread, 
Or know the conquered knee ; 

The harpies of the shore shall pluck 
The eagle of the sea ! 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ! 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave : 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail ; 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 

BANNOCKBURN. 

Robert Burns. 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled — 
Scots, wham Bruce has often led — 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victorie ! 

Now 's the day, and now's the hour; 
See the front o' battle lour ; 
See approach proud Edward's power — 
Chains and slaverie ! 

Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
Let him turn and flee ! 



Patriotism. 245 

Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa' — 
Let him follow me ! 

By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty 's in every blow ! 
Let us do-, or die i 

* 

READY. 

Phcebe Cary. 

Loaded with gallant soldiers, 

A boat shot in to the land, 
And lay at the right of Rodman's Point, 

With her keel upon the sand. 

Lightly, gayly, they came to shore, 

And never a man afraid; 
When sudden the enemy opened fire 

From his deadly ambuscade. 

Each man fell flat on the bottom 
Of the boat ; and the captain said : 

" If we lie here, we all are captured, 
And the first who moves is dead ! " 



246 Speaker and Reader. 

Then out spoke a Negro sailor, 

No slavish soul had he ; 
" Somebody 's got to die, boys, 

And it might as well be me!" 

Firmly he rose, and fearlessly 

Stepped out into the tide ; 
He pushed the vessel safely off, 

Then fell across her side : 

Fell, pierced by a dozen bullets, 

As the boat swung clear and free ; — 

But there was n't a man of them that day 
Who was fitter to die than he ! 

THE CLAIM OF THE NEGRO. 1 

Booker T. Washington. 

When, in 1776, the Negro was asked to decide be- 
tween British oppression and American independence, 
we find him choosing the better part ; and Crispus 
Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed his blood on 
State Street, Boston, that the white American might 
enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in 
slavery ; when the long and memorable struggle came 
between union and separation ; when the Negro knew 
that victory meant freedom, and defeat his continued 
enslavement ; when the suggestion and the tempta- 
tion came to burn the home and massacre wife and 

1 From The Future of the American Negro. Page 128. Copyright 
by Small, Maynard & Co. 



Patriotism. 247 

children during the absence of the master in battle, 
and thus insure his liberty, — we find him choosing the 
better part, and for four long years protecting and sup- 
porting the helpless, defenseless ones intrusted to his 
care. 

When, during our war with Spain, the safety and 
honor of the Republic were threatened by a foreign foe, 
when the wail and anguish of the oppressed from a dis- 
tant isle reached our ears, we find the Negro forgetting 
his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that 
discriminate against him in his own country, and again 
choosing the better part. And if any one would know 
how he acquitted himself in the field at Santiago, let 
him apply for answer to Shafter and Roosevelt and 
Wheeler. Let them tell how the Negro faced death 
and laid down his life in defense of honor and humanity. 
When the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro 
in the Spanish- American War has been heard from the 
lips of Northern soldier and Southern soldier, from ex- 
abolitionist and ex-master, then shall the country decide 
whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country 
should not be given the highest opportunity to live for 
its country. 

"I AM CONTENT." 1 

A spindle of hazel-wood had I ; 

Into the mill-stream it fell one day — 

The water has brought it me back no more. 

1 From The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Translated by Alma Strettell. 



248 Speaker and Header. 

As he lay a-dying, the soldier spake : 

" I am content. 

Let my mother be told in the village there, 

And my bride in the hut be told, 

That they must pray with folded hands, 

With folded hands for me." 

The soldier is dead — and with folded hands 

His bride and his mother pray. 

On the field of battle they dug his grave, 

And red with his life-blood the earth was dyed, 

The earth they laid him in. 

The sun looked down on him there and spake : 

"I am content." 

And flowers bloomed thickly upon his grave, 

And were glad they blossomed there. 

And when the wind in tree-tops roared, 

The soldier asked from the deep, dark grave : 

"Did the banner flutter then?" 
"Not so, my hero," the wind replied, 
"The fight is done, but the banner won, 
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence, 
Have borne it in triumph hence." 
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave : 

" I am content." 
And again he heard the shepherds pass 
And the flocks go wandering by, 
And the soldier asked : " Is the sound I hear 
The sound of the battle's roar ? " 
And they all replied : " My hero, nay ! 
Thou art dead and the fight is o'er, 



Patriotism. 249 

Our country joyful and free." 

Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave : 

" I am content." 
Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass, 
And the soldier asks once more : 
"Are these not the voices of them that love, 
That love and remember me?" 
"Not so, my hero," the lovers say, 
" We are those that remember not ; 
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled, 
And the dead must be forgot." 
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave : 

"I am content." 

A spindle of hazel-wood had I ; 

Into the mill- stream it fell one day — 

The water has brought it me back no more. 

% 



Part IV. 
ENTERPRISE AND COURAGE. 

THE TRAINING OF FIREMEN. 1 

Jacob A. Rus. 

Firemen are athletes as a matter of course. They 
have to be, or they could not hold their places for a 
week, even if they could get into them at all. The 
mere handling of the scaling ladders, which, light though 
they seem, weigh from sixteen to forty pounds, requires 
unusual strength. No particular skill is needed. A 
man need only have steady nerve, and the strength to 
raise the long pole by its narrow end, and jam the iron 
hook through a window which he cannot see but knows 
is there. Once through, the teeth in the hook and the 
man's weight upon the ladder hold it safe, and there is 
no real danger unless he loses his head. Against that 
possibility the severe drill in the school of instruction 
is the barrier. Any one to whom climbing at dizzy 
heights, or doing the hundred and one things of peril to 
ordinary men which firemen are constantly called upon 
to do, causes the least discomfort, is rejected as unfit. 

1 From " Heroes who Fight Fire," The Century. Vol. LV, page 486, 
February, 1898. Copyright by The Century Company, and printed by 
permission. 

250 



Enterprise and Courage. 251 

About five per cent of all appointees are eliminated by 
the ladder test, and never get beyond their probation 
service. A certain smaller percentage takes itself out 
through loss of " nerve " generally. The first expe- 
rience of a room full of smothering smoke, with the fire 
roaring overhead, is generally sufficient to convince the 
timid that the service is not for him. No cowards are 
dismissed from the department, for the reason that none 
get into it. 

Every fireman nowadays must pass muster at life- 
saving drill, must climb to the top of any building on 
his scaling ladder, slide down with a rescued comrade, 
or jump without hesitation from the third story into the 
life-net spread below. By such training the men are 
fitted for their work, and the occasion comes soon that 
puts them to the test. It came to Daniel J. Meagher, 
foreman of Hook and Ladder Company No. 3, when, in 
the midnight hour, a woman hung from the fifth-story 
window of a burning building, and the longest ladder at 
hand fell short ten or a dozen feet of reaching her. The 
boldest man in the crew had vainly attempted to reach 
her, and in the effort had sprained his foot. There 
were no scaling ladders then. Meagher ordered the rest 
to plant the ladder on the stoop and hold it out from 
the building so that he might reach the very topmost 
step. Balanced thus where the slightest tremor might 
have caused ladder and all to crash to the ground, he 
bade the woman drop, and receiving her in his arms, 
carried her down safe. 



252 Speaker and Reader. 

HOW JOHN BINNS, FIREMAN, SAVED A BOY. 1 

Jacob A. Rus. 

Thirteen years have passed since, but it is all to me 
as if it had happened yesterday — the clanging of the 
fire bells, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, the wild rush 
and terror of the streets ; then the great hush that fell 
upon the crowd ; the sea of upturned faces with the fire 
glow upon it ; and up there, against the background of 
black smoke that poured from roof and attic, the boy 
clinging to the narrow ledge, so far up that it seemed 
humanly impossible that help could ever come. 

But even then it was coming. Up from the street, 
while the crew of the truck company were laboring with 
the heavy extension ladder that at its longest stretch was 
many feet too short, crept four men upon long, slender 
poles with cross-bars iron-hooked at the end. Standing 
in one window, they reached up and thrust the hook 
through the next one above, then mounted a story 
higher. Again the crash of glass, and again the dizzy 
ascent. Straight up the wall they crept, looking like 
human flies on the ceiling, and clinging as close, never 
resting, reaching one recess only to set out for the next ; 
nearer and nearer in the race for life, until but a single 
span separated the foremost from the boy. And now the 
iron hook fell at his feet, and the fireman stood upon 
the step with the rescued lad in his arms, just as the 

1 From " Heroes who Fight Fire," The Century. Vol. LV, page 483, 
February, 1898. Copyright by The Century Company, and printed by 
permission. 



Enterprise and Courage. 253 

pent-up flame burst lurid from the attic window, reach- 
ing with impotent fury for its prey. The next moment 
they were safe upon the great ladder waiting to receive 
them below. 

Then such a shout went up ! Men fell on each other's 
necks and cried and laughed at once. Strangers slapped 
one another on the back with glistening faces, shook 
hands, and behaved generally like men gone suddenly 
mad. Women wept in the street. The driver of a car 
stalled in the crowd, who had stood through it all speech- 
less, clutching the reins, whipped his horses into a gallop 
and drove away, yelling like a Comanche, to relieve his 
feelings. The boy and his rescuer were carried across 
the street without any one knowing how. Policemen 
forgot their dignity and shouted with the rest. Fire, 
peril, terror, and loss were alike forgotten in the one 
touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. 

Fireman John Binns was made captain of his crew, 
and the Bennett medal was pinned on his coat on the 
next parade day. 

% 

CAPTAIN TOBIN. 1 

They buried Tobin yesterday. At his funeral were 
his family and friends, and members of the societies to 
which he belonged. It was not the funeral of a public 
hero, but of a plain city employee who had died in har- 
ness. Edward H. Tobin was a captain in the Fire 

1 From The A T ew York Sun. 



254 Speaker and Reader. 

Department. He met death in doing his everyday duty, 
fighting fire. His employment had none of the inspira- 
tion and the stimulus that is lent to the soldier in battle 
by the hope of glory and the shock of personal conflict 
of man with man. Yet he stood ready, by day and by 
night, to face death, and did face death five, ten, twenty 
times a week — not at the summons of the trumpets and 
the drums, but at the ringing of a gong. In his fights 
with fire he had seen many an engagement, any one of 
which was the equal in risk to himself and his comrades 
of battles in memory of which men wear bronze buttons 
on their coat lapels. When the fireman climbs a wall 
with his scaling ladder, and descends under the weight 
of a fainting woman ; when he makes a bridge of his 
back that those in peril may walk over him to safety ; 
when he hangs by his legs from a roof and swings one 
man after another from a window below out of danger to 
his side ; when strapped to his seat on his engine, turn- 
ing a corner at full speed, he overturns the engine to 
save an old apple woman from being run down, we cheer 
him, — we give him medals, we make much of him in the 
public prints. He well deserves all that he gets, and 
more. But may we never forget the fellow who, without 
the stirring consciousness that he is battling to save 
another's life, sets his teeth and dives into the smoke 
to stop the fire and to save property. Walls released 
by warped or melted girders do not give warning before 
they fall ; no man knows when the "back draught " may 
sweep down a stair or up, or across a floor upon him, or 
at what moment a pall of smoke that suffocates as surely 
and as swiftly as the hangman's noose may come upon 



Enterprise and Courage. 255 

him as it came upon Tobin in the bowling alleys in West 
Fifty-Ninth Street ten days ago. 

Another man will be promoted to Tobin' s place, from 
out of the ranks of hundreds as brave and devoted as he, 
as ready as he to lay down his life in the face of duty. 

THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER. 1 

Chauncey Depew. 

The true locomotive engineer is always a man of 
sense, of quick thought and courage in an emergency, 
and in peril a hero. With his train thundering along at 
the rate of fifty miles an hour, and the safety of hun- 
dreds of passengers dependent upon his judgment and 
skill, his decision made instantly, and in the presence of 
danger, saves the train from destruction many times 
without the public being the wiser. He sees the tot- 
tering bridge, the obstruction upon the track, the open 
switch. The opportunity is before him to reverse and 
jump, or to stick to his engine and perform his duties. 
In ninety-nine cases of a hundred he utters a brief 
prayer, bids a mental good-bye to his wife and little ones 
at home, and rescues his train or goes calmly to his 
death. 

In the riots of 1863, when the city of New York 
was in possession of a mob, trains of the Hudson River 

1 From Life and Later Speeches. Pages 471, 472. The Cassell Pub- 
lishing Company. 



256 Speaker and Reader. 

Road were stopped, and hundreds of women were in the 
depot at Thirtieth Street, unable to get to their homes. 
The rioters threatened to kill any one who tried to 
move a wheel. An engineer instantly volunteered and 
said : " I will take that train up the river." On either 
side of the road were men frenzied with rage and with 
drink, ready for murder or any desperate deed, but they 
were so awed by the calm courage of this engineer that 
he was permitted to proceed. After forty years of ser- 
vice on the Central this engineer, Henry Millikin, in 
1889 joined the silent majority. His name stands 
among the unheralded heroes who are the pride and 
glory of our humanity. 

% 

RIDING ON A LOCOMOTIVE. 1 

Thomas W. Higginson. 

Let any one who believes that the day of daring is 
past beg or buy a ride on the locomotive of an express 
train, some cold winter morning. One wave of the 
conductor's hand and the live engine springs snorting 
beneath you, as no Arab steed ever rushed over the 
desert. It is not like being bound to an arrow, for that 
motion would be smoother ; it is not like being hurled 
upon an ocean crest, for that would be slower. You 
are rushing onward, and you are powerless ; that is all. 
The frosty air gives such a brittle and slippery look to 
the two iron lines that lie between you and destruction, 

1 From Out- Door Papers. Page 35. Lee & Shepard. 



Enterprise and Courage. 257 

that you appreciate the Mohammedan fable of the Bridge 
Herat, thinner than a hair, sharper than a scimitar, 
which stretches over hell and leads to paradise. Noth- 
ing has passed over that perilous track for many hours ; 
the cliffs may have fallen and buried it, or diabolical 
malice put obstructions on it ; each curving embank- 
ment may hide unknown horrors, from which, though 
all other escape, you, on the engine, cannot ; and still 
the surging locomotive bounds onward, beneath your 
mad career. You draw a long breath, as you dismount 
at last, a hundred miles away, as if you had been riding 
with Mazeppa or Brunechilde, and yet escaped alive. 
And there, by your side, stands the quiet, grimy engi- 
neer, turning already to his newspaper, and unconscious, 
while he reads of the charge at Balaklava, that his life 
is Balaklava every day. 

% 

THE POLICEMAN. 1 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

A policeman is worth little unless he is honest, tem- 
perate, orderly, and cleanly without and within ; but he 
is worth less if he does not possess the positive, virile 
good qualities of hardihood, energy, resolution, and per- 
sonal daring. He is often called upon to display quali- 
ties which in a soldier would be called heroic. His 

1 From " The Roll of Honor of the New York Police," The Century 
Magazi?ie, October, 1897. Copyright by The Century Company, and 
printed by permission. 



258 Speaker and Reader. 

feats in saving life, or in arresting dangerous criminals, 
alone and at night, often imply just as much courage as 
those of the man who captures an enemy's flag in bat- 
tle, or plants his own flag on a hostile parapet. During 
two years' service the New York Police Board singled 
out men for special mention, because of some feat of 
heroism, over a hundred times. The heroism usually 
took one of four forms : saving somebody from drown- 
ing, saving somebody from a burning building, stopping 
a runaway team, or arresting some law-breaker under 
exceptional circumstances. 

In November, 1896, an officer saved five persons from 
burning. He was at the time asleep, when he was 
aroused by a fire in a house a few doors away. Run- 
ning over the roofs of the adjoining houses until he 
reached the burning building, he found that on the 
fourth floor the flames had cut off all exit from an apart- 
ment in which there were four women, two of them over 
fifty, and one of the others with a six-months-old baby. 
The officer ran down into the adjoining house, broke 
open the door of the apartment on the same floor, — the 
fourth, — and crept out on the coping, less than three 
inches wide, that ran from one house to the other. 
Being a large and very powerful and active man, he 
managed to keep hold of the casing of the window with 
one hand, and with the other to reach to the window 
of the apartment where the women and children were. 
The firemen appeared and stretched a net underneath. 
The crowd that was looking on suddenly became 
motionless and silent. Then, one by one, he drew the 
women out of the window, and holding them tight 



Enterprise and Courage. 259 

against the wall, passed them into the other window. 
The exertion in such an attitude was great, and he 
strained himself badly ; but he possessed a practical 
mind, and as soon as the women were saved he began 
a prompt investigation of the cause of the fire, and 
arrested two men whose carelessness, as was afterward 
proved, caused it. 

The police occupy positions of great importance. 
They not merely preserve order, the first essential of 
both liberty and civilization, but to a large portion of 
our population they stand as the embodiment as well as 
the repesentative of the law of the land. The power 
and influence of the policeman are great. For gallan- 
try and good conduct he should receive prompt and 
generous recognition. 

% 

A COLLEGE TEAM'S THANKSGIVING 
GAME. 1 

GUSTAV KOBBE. 

To no life-saving crew does the term " heroes of 
peace " more exactly apply than to that of the station 
at Evanston, Illinois, on Lake Michigan. With the 
exception of the keeper, it is composed of students of 
the Northwestern University, who, when not on duty 
at the station, are quietly pursuing their studies. It is 

1 From " Heroes of the Life-Saving Service," The Century. Vol. 
LV, page 926, April, 1898. Copyright by The Century Company, and 
printed by permission. 



260 Speaker and Reader. 

a kind of college team that has the waves of Lake 
Michigan for a playground, human lives for a goal, and 
the elements for umpire. 

One Thanksgiving morning these brave fellows re- 
ceived word that the life was being pounded out of a 
steamer and her crew off Fort Sheridan, twelve miles 
distant. With the lifeboat they made their way to the 
scene of the disaster. From the bluff they could see 
the vessel in the breakers, about a thousand yards from 
shore. There was a living gale, the thermometer was 
below the freezing-point, and the air thick with snow 
and sleet. 

A wild ravine — a roaring, ice-glazed crack in the 
bluff — led down to the shore. It would have been 
impossible even for this plucky crew to have taken the 
boat safely down through the steep ravine ; but soldiers 
and civilians, armed with picks and shovels, hewed out 
steps from its side, and mowed a path through the 
brush. The beach was a mere strip, exposed to the full 
fury of the seething waves. Thrice, in hauling the 
boat to the windward point, from which Keeper Lawson 
decided to launch, it filled. 

The bluff was lined with soldiers and others from the 
fort, and every one held his breath as the. frail-looking 
boat, which seemed a mere cockleshell amid the writh- 
ing waters, left the beach. Once it nearly pitch-poled ; 
once it filled to the thwarts ; and though the crew 
pulled with the strength of desperation, it was driven to 
leeward, and had to be forced toward the wreck in the 
very teeth of the gale. The life-savers' clothing was 
frozen stiff ; the vessel was shrouded with ice ; her 



Enterprise and Courage. 261 

crew, half perished, huddled forward. At last the boat 
was forced under the steamer's lee, and six men were 
brought off and taken ashore. Three trips were made 
in all, and when the life-savers finally beached their 
boat, their condition was almost as pitiable as that of 
those they had saved. That was this college team's 
Thanksgiving game. They won it against fearful odds, 
a fact attested by the gold medals awarded to keeper 
and crew. 

% 

HOW JOHN GILL SAVED THE -CITY OF 
PARIS." 1 

GUSTAV KOBBE. 

The fast steamship City of Paris on one of her east- 
ward trips, was making what promised to be a record- 
breaking run. It was half-past five in the evening of 
the day before that on which she was expected to steam 
gaily into Queenstown harbor. 

That moment, with a smooth sea and a clear sky, 
there was a sudden crash of machinery and timber, 
an outpour of steam from the engine-room hatches, a 
trembling of the ship from stem to stern, an almost 
immediate list to starboard, and on deck the sharp com- 
mand, " Clear the lifeboats ! " 

Seven men, engineers and "greasemen," had rushed 
up from the engine room to escape the scalding steam 

1 From " Every Day Heroism," The Century. Vol. LV, page 403, 
January, 1898. Copyright by The Century Company, and printed by 
permission. 



262 Speaker and Reader. 

and flying machinery. What had happened none of 
them could tell. But what was happening ? For down 
there was still a crashing and thrashing, as if everything 
were being smashed to pieces. Into that roaring, 
steaming hell there plunged a man. A few moments 
later the uproar had ceased and he merged again. He 
had stopped the machinery and, as investigation showed, 
probably saved the ship. 

The starboard engine had broken. Its wreck con- 
tinued revolving. Part of this was a broken rod, which 
acted like a giant flail, beating down everything in its 
way. It was the destructive work of this flail that 
John Gill, one of the second assistant engineers, checked 
when he shut off the steam. Some of the broken 
pieces of machinery had already dropped below. Had 
they been followed by other and more massive portions, 
which doubtless would have smashed through the bot- 
tom of the ship, she would probably have sunk like an 
iron pot. When, at the imminent risk of his own life, 
Gill stopped the machinery, he saved the ship and the 
souls it bore. 



THE WRECK OF THE BIRKENHEAD. 

Frederic W. Farrar. 

The good ship had crashed at sunset against a sunken 
rock ; the boats were too few, the sea was rushing in ; 
sharks were thrusting their horrible black fins through 
the white breakers of the boiling surf ; and amid the 



Enterprise and Courage. 263 

shrieks of women and children some one clamored that 
all should save themselves who could. Then, clear and 
loud, rang out the voice of the good colonel, bidding the 
men to their ranks. That order meant nothing less 
than death — death in those raging waters — death 
among those savage sharks — but it was instantly 
obeyed. In perfect order the boats were pushed from 
the shattered vessel, rowing the women and children to 
the shore, while, inch by inch, the ship sank down and 
down, but still under steadfast men, till the last great 
wave rolled over her, and, " obedient even unto death," 
brave men — loyal to their chief, loyal to England, 
loyal to God — sank to their noble burial under the 
bloody surf. 

% 

HOW KEEPER ATKINS WIPED OUT THE 
-GOADING SLUR." 1 

GUSTAV KOBBE. 

Circumstances singularly pathetic surround the loss 
which befell the crew of the Peaked Hill station, near 
Provincetown, Cape Cod. Keeper Atkins, of this sta- 
tion, was one of the true and trusted veterans of the 
service. But one stormy day in winter, after twelve 
hours' exposure on the beach, exhausted by futile efforts 
to launch the surf-boat, he and his crew had the morti- 

1 From " Heroes of the Life-Saving Service," The Century. Vol. 
LV, page 932, April, 1898. Copyright by The Century Company, and 
printed by permission. 



264 Speaker and Header. 

fication of seeing the rescue they had attempted made 
by a crew of volunteers. It mattered not that these 
had made no previous exertions, that they had come 
fresh and unwearied upon the scene ; Keeper Atkins 
and his crew had to take from the community what, in 
the staid, old-fashioned speech of the Cape, is known as 
the " goading slur." The keeper made no attempt to 
answer his critics, but gradually, as that season and the 
following summer wore away, a settled look of determi- 
nation became stamped on his face, and his bearing took 
on a dignity almost tragic. When, at the opening of 
the next season, his wife, as he left his home for the 
station, begged him not to expose himself to needless 
danger, he replied : — 

" Before this season is over I will have wiped out the 
1 goading slur.' " 

Reaching the station, he called his crew about him 
and informed them that, no matter at what peril, a 
rescue would be attempted at every wreck within the 
limits of the station. 

That winter a storm of almost unprecedented fury 
burst over the coast, and a vessel was swept upon the 
Peaked Hill bars. A surf-boat, launched by seemingly 
superhuman power, put out from the shore. But 
neither desperation, nor even madness, could keep a 
boat afloat in such a sea ; and when, one after another, 
those who had braved it were cast upon the beach, 
three were dead. One of these was Keeper Atkins. 
He had wiped out the "goading slur." 

Of such stuff are the heroes of the life-saving service. 



Enterprise and Courage. 265 

A HERO OF THE FURNACE ROOM. 1 

The duty of the boiler-makers on warships is of the 
most dangerous nature. In action, between actions, 
and out of action the repairs that they are called upon 
at a moment's notice to effect are sufficient to send a 
chill of fear through the hearts of most men. They 
will creep right inside a boiler or furnace which had but 
a few moments before been full of boiling liquid or red- 
hot coals. They will screw up nuts and fasten bolts or 
repair leaking pipes or joints in places that other men 
would consider impossible to approach. While the 
ship's big guns are making the vessel tremble, and the 
enemy's shells are bursting in every direction, these men, 
w r ith positively reckless fearlessness, will venture down 
into the bowels of the fighting ship, amid roaring 
machinery, hissing steam, and flaming fires, to rectify 
an accident which, unrepaired, might send the ship 
and all her human freight to the bottom more surely 
and more quickly than shell or shot from the best guns 
of the enemy. These men are heroes. 

The Castine, when she went to work to batter the 
walls of San Juan, carried on board three of these 
boiler-makers, Fish, another, and one Huntley, of Nor- 
folk, Virginia. The Castine went into action under 
full steam, her triple screws revolving at the fullest 
speed, and her battery of eight guns started her quiver- 
ing with excitement and the fierce delight of battle. 
The furnaces were heated almost to white heat, and the 

1 From the Toledo Blade. 



266 Speaker and Reader. 

forced draught was urging the flames to greater heat, 
the boiling water to the higher production of steam, the 
engines to increasing revolutions. Suddenly, without 
expectation, without warning, far down in the furnace 
hole, unheard by officer or man, amid the din of battle, 
the thundering reverberations of exploding gunpowder, 
there arose a fierce hissing noise right inside one of the 
furnaces ; and those who heard it trembled as no guns 
or shot or shell had power to make them tremble. 

A socket, bolt in the back connection at the very 
farthest interior extremity of the furnace had become 
loose. A leak had been sprung ; the steam was pour- 
ing in upon the fire, threatening in a few moments to 
put it out and stop the progress of the ship if it did not 
have the more awful effect of causing a terrible explo- 
sion and annihilation ! 

The faces of the men below, in that moment of terrible 
suspense, blanched beneath the grime that covered them. 
None knew what to do save wait the awful coming of 
the shock they knew must come. 

None ? Nay, but there was one ! The first to pull 
himself together, the first to whom returned the fear- 
driven senses, was Boiler-maker Huntley. His name 
does not appear on the navy list. Even his first name 
was unknown to his confrere, Fish. Only Boiler-maker 
Huntley, of Norfolk, Virginia. But that is enough, and 
his deed should be sufficient to find for him a niche in 
the annals of fame whenever and wherever the story of 
the United States and her navy is told. 

One instant of startled horror — then, without hesi- 
tation, without trepidation, with stern-set jaws and 



Enterprise and Courage. 267 

fierce, devoted determination on every line of face and 
form — 

" Turn off the forced draught ! " he cried. 

" Goodness, Huntley, what are you going to do ? " 

" Bank the fire ! Quick ! " 

" It 's certain death ! " 

" For one — unless, for all ! Turn off the draught ! 
Bank the fire ! " 

The orders were carried out feverishly. 

"Now a plank! " 

And before they could stop him this hero had flung 
the plank into the furnace, right on top of the black 
coal with which it was banked, and had himself climbed 
and crawled over the ragged mass, far back to where 
the steam was rushing like some hissing devil from the 
loosened socket. 

For three minutes he remained inside that fearful 
place, and then the work was done — the ship was 
saved — and his friends drew him out at the door. 
The force draught went to its work again, and in an 
instant the furnace was once more raging. 

But what of Huntley ? Scorched, scalded, insensible, 
well-nigh dead, he lay upon the iron floor of the furnace 
room, while around him stood his mates dousing him 
with water, and using every known means for his resus- 
citation. He did not die, but when once more he 
opened his eyes, and w r as able to be carefully lifted into 
daylight, there arose such cheers from the throats of 
those dirty, grimy mates as never greeted taking of city 
or sinking of fleet. 

The story is briefly chronicled in the log of the Cas- 



268 Speaker and Reader. 

tine, and Huntley simply claims that he "did his duty." 
But while the United States remains a nation, so long 
as the banner bearing the silver stars on the field of 
blue above alternate stripes of red and white remains 
the symbol of purity, bravery, and patriotism to Ameri- 
can hearts the whole world over ; so long, when her 
heroes are spoken of, one name should never be omitted 
— that of Boiler-maker Huntley, of Norfolk, Virginia. 



% 

TRUE BRAVERY. 1 

Charles F. Dole. 

Some one may say, " Did not the men and women 
have to be braver in the war times than in time of 
peace?" Let us stamp that as false. What a terrible 
thing it would be to be brave, if bravery requires of us 
to hurt and kill ! Is it not brave to try to save life ? 
Thousands of brave men are risking their lives every 
day to help men and to save us all from harm. Brave 
doctors and nurses go where deadly disease is, and are 
not afraid to help save the sick. Brave students are 
trying perilous experiments, so as to find out better 
knowledge for us all. Brave engineers on thousands of 
locomotives are not afraid of sudden death if they can 
save their passengers from harmful accidents. Brave 

1 From The Young Citizen. Pages 43-45. Copyright by D. C. 
Heath & Co. 



Enterprise and Courage. 269 

sailors are always facing the sea and the storm. Brave 
firemen stand ready to die to bring little children safely 
out of burning buildings. Brave boys every summer 
risk their lives to save their comrades from drowning. 
Brave fellows hold in check maddened horses and pre- 
vent them from running away with women and children. 
Brave women risk their own lives daily for the sake 
of others. 

Never forget it ; it is better to be brave to help men 
than it is to be brave to harm them. 



THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF THE 
EARTH. 1 

John Fiske, 

On the 6th of September, 1522, the Victoria sailed 
into the Guadalquivir, with eighteen gaunt and haggard 
survivors to tell the proud story of the first circum- 
navigation of the earth. 

The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest 
feat of navigation that had ever been performed, and 
nothing can be imagined that would surpass it except a 
journey to some other planet. It has not the unique 
historic position of the first voyage of Columbus, which 
brought together two streams of human life that had 

1 From The Discovery of America. Vol. II, pages 209, 210. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



270 Speaker and Reader. 

been disjoined since the Glacial Period. But as an 
achievement in ocean navigation that voyage of Colum- 
bus sinks into insignificance by the side of it, and when 
the earth was a second time encompassed by the great- 
est English sailor of his age, the advance in knowledge, 
as well as the different route chosen, had much reduced 
the difficulty of the performance. When we consider 
the frailness of the ships, the immeasurable extent of the 
unknown, the mutinies that were prevented or quelled, 
and the hardships that were endured, we can have no 
hesitation in speaking of Magellan as the prince of 
navigators. Nor can we ever fail to admire the sim- 
plicity and purity of that devoted life in which there is 
nothing that seeks to be hidden or explained away. 



% 



THE LAST GLADIATORIAL CONTEST. 1 

F. W. Farrar. 

The veteran Stilicho had conquered Alaric and his 
Goths. The Romans invited the hero to gladiatorial 
games in honor of the victory. The empire has been 
Christian for a hundred years, yet these infamous and 
brutalizing shows still continue. Deadened by custom, 
people argue "that the gladiators themselves like them ; 
that they gain their livelihood by them ; that they train 

1 From In the Days of thy Youth. Pages 344, 345. Macmillan & Co. 



Enterprise and Courage. 2 7 1 

the multitude to bravery ; that, at any rate, the enjoy- 
ment of the respectable many is worth more than the 
anguish of a squalid few." The games begin ; the tall, 
strong men enter the arena ; the tragic cry echoes 
through the amphitheatre, " Hail ! Caesar! We who are 
about to die salute you " ; the swords are drawn, and 
at an instant's signal will be bathed in blood. At that 
very instant down leaps into the arena a rude, ignorant 
monk. "The gladiators shall not fight!" he exclaims; 
"Are you going to thank God by shedding innocent 
blood?" A yell of execration rises from those eighty 
thousand spectators. "What impudent wretch is this who 
dares to set himself up as knowing better than we do ; who 
dares to accuse eighty thousand people — Christians, too, 
— of doing wrong ? Down with him ! Pelt him ! Cut 
him down ! " Stones are hurled at him ; the gladiators, 
angry at his interference, run him through w^ith their 
swords ; he falls dead, and his body is kicked aside, and 
the games go on, and the people — Christians and all — 
shout applause. Ay ! they go on, and the people shout, 
but for the last time. Their eyes are opened ; their 
sophistry is at an end ; the blood of a martyr is on their 
souls. Shame stops forever the massacre of gladiators ; 
and because one poor ignorant hermit has moral cour- 
age, " one more habitual crime was wiped away from the 
annals of the world." 



*' 



272 Speaker and Reader. 

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY AMONG 
THE ESQUIMAUX. 1 

ElVIND ASTRUP. 

The small Esquimaux community at Smith's Sound 
is founded on the principles of liberty, equality, frater- 
nity. It is a community where money is unknown, and 
love of one's neighbor is a fundamental rule. This is 
due to the conditions under which these people live. 
The Esquimaux are good because they have no tempta- 
tion to be bad. 

Suppose a hunter is more skillful than his fellows, and 
so has accumulated more game than his needs require. 
Shall he bury it beneath the ground and let it spoil ? 
Or shall he try and sell it where there are no purchasers ? 
No ; willingly he will divide his spoil among those who 
are less skilled in the chase, whose arms are weaker, or 
whose cares have left less time for sport. When a 
hunter kills more game than he can bear away with him, 
he leaves the remainder protected by a heap of stones, 
that any who come that way may help themselves. 
They form a single family, for whose common good 
every one exerts his utmost energy, and it becomes an 
impossibility that some should be in luxury whilst others 
starve, for they share the joys of life as well as its sor- 
rows. When the tired sportsman comes home loaded 
with the savory meat of the reindeer, to keep it for him- 
self and his family would be an unheard-of act. Com- 

1 From With Peary near the Pole, Pages 284-290. C. Arthur 
Pearson, London. 



Enterprise and Courage. 273 

pany there must be, and all, young and old, must be 
bidden to the feast. Their honesty is absolute, and 
theft is unknown, as they have all things in common. 
Liberty is the guiding principle among these happy 
citizens ; not that liberty which is bounded by the strict 
letter of the law, but liberty as complete as one could 
hope for in the world — the liberty of mutual confidence. 

% 

FREE MINERS' LAW IN THE KLONDIKE. 1 
Frederick Palmer. 

The essence of the "free miners' law " was being on 
the "squar'," which, after all, is a rough equivalent of 
the brotherhood of man. Between the disputants as to 
the ownership of a claim the " miners' meeting " decided 
which one was in the right. All offenders were brought 
before the bar of their fellows. A man accused of theft, 
after an examination of witnesses, was acquitted or con- 
victed by the holding up of hands. If guilty, he was, 
according to the circumstances, either warned to leave 
the country for good — no slight penalty in midwinter, 
with only the hospitality of Indians to depend upon — or 
else ostracism was postponed pending good behavior. 

Under the force of self-interest a universal good will 
prevailed. Whatever a miner had — perhaps the incre- 
ment of a summer's earnings which was to pay for 

1 From In the Klondike. Pages 64, 71-73, 109. Copyright, 1899, 
by Charles Scribner's Sons. 



274 Speaker and Reader, 

another year's supplies — he kept in tomato cans on 
the table of his cabin with impunity. There was not 
one strong box for the safe-keeping of the daily harvest 
of thousands on all of the creeks. The bags of dust 
were kept in the little cellars which the miners had 
excavated under their cabins for the preservation of 
their food. 

When he went away from home on a journey to some 
other creek he left his latchstring out. On the very 
evening of his absence, while his cabin was occupied by 
another, he was, perhaps, sleeping in some one else's 
without an invitation. By the unwritten law of the land 
he enjoyed whatever luxuries of food and rest the cabin 
afforded ; but, likewise by the unwritten law of the land, 
he washed any dishes that he had used and put them 
and all other things that he had disturbed back where 
they belonged, folded the blankets on the bunk, cut fire- 
wood in place of that which he had burned, and laid 
kindlings by the stove, ready to make warmth and cheer 
for the owner when he should return, cold and weary. 

When the Cheechawkos, as the Indians call strangers, 
came, however, all this was quickly changed. As an 
old miner said, " Civilization 's here, and it 's a case of 
locking up yer dust after this. But, young man, ye 
can't be an old-timer, never ! Ye can't be an old-timer, 
'less ye 've lived in the camps in the old days when a 
man was a man and his neighbor's brother." 



% 



Enterprise and Courage, 275 

THE SEMINOLE'S REPLY. 
George W. Patten. 

Blaze, with your serried columns ! 

I will not bend the knee ! 
The shackles ne'er again shall bind 

The arm which now is free. 
I Ye mail'd it with the thunder, 

When the tempest mutter'd low ; 
And, where it falls, ye well may dread 

The lightning of its blow ! 

I Ye scared ye in the city, 

I Ye scalp' d ye on the plain ; 
Go, count your chosen, where they fell 

Beneath my leaden rain ! 
I scorn your proffer 'd treaty I 

The pale-face I defy ! 
Revenge is stamped upon my spear, 

And blood 's my battle cry ! 

Some strike for hope of booty, 

Some to defend their all ; 
I battle for the joy I have 

To see the white man fall : 
I love, among the wounded, 

To hear his dying moan, 
And catch, while chanting at his side, 

The music of his groan. 



276 Speaker and Reader. 

Ye 've traiPd me through the forest, 

Ye 've track'd me o'er the stream ; 
And, struggling through the everglade, 

Your bristling bayonets gleam ; 
But I stand as should the warrior, 

With his rifle and his spear ; 
The scalp ot vengeance still is red, 

And warns ye, — Come not here ! 

I loathe ye in my bosom, 

I scorn ye with mine eye, 
And I '11 taunt ye with my latest breath, 

And fight ye, — till I die! 
I ne'er will ask ye quarter, 

And I ne'er will be your slave ; 
But I '11 swim the sea of slaughter, 

Till I sink beneath its wave ! 

% 

A LEAP FOR LIFE. 

Walter Colton. 

Old Ironsides at anchor lay 

In the harbor of Mahon ; 
A dead calm rested on the bay, — 

The waves to sleep had gone ; 
When little Hal, the Captain's son, 

A lad both brave and good, 
In sport up shroud and rigging ran, 

And on the main truck stood ! 



Enterprise and Courage. 277 

A shudder shot through every vein, 

All eyes were turn'd on high ! 
There stood the boy, with dizzy brain, 

Between the sea and sky ; 
No hold had he above, below ; 

Alone he stood in air ; 
To that far height none dared to go, 

No aid could reach him there. 

We gazed, but not a man could speak ; 

With horror all aghast ; 
In groups, with pallid brow and cheek, 

We watch'd the quivering mast ; 
The atmosphere grew thick and hot, 

And of a lurid hue ; — 
As riveted unto the spot, 

Stood officers and crew. 

The father came on deck : he gasp'd, 

"O God! thy will be done!" 
Then suddenly a rifle grasp'd 

And aim'd it at his son. 
" Jump far out, boy, into the wave ! 

Jump or I fire, " he said ; 
"That only chance your life can save ; 

Jump, jump ! " The boy obey'd. 

He sunk, — he rose, — he lived, — he moved, — 

And, for the ship struck out : 
On board we hail'd the lad beloved 

With many a manly shout. 



278 Speaker and Reader. 

His father drew, in silent joy, 
Those wet arms round his neck, 

And folded to his heart his boy, 
Then fainted on the deck. 



THE RIDE OF JENNIE McNEAL. 1 

Will Carleton. 

Paul Revere was a rider bold — 
Well has his valorous deed been told ; 
Sheridan's ride was a glorious one — 
Often it has been dwelt upon. 
But why should men do all the deeds 
On which the love of a patriot feeds ? - 
Hearken to me, while I reveal 
The dashing ride of Jennie McNeal. 

On a spot as pretty as might be found 

In the dangerous length of the Neutral Ground, 

In a cottage cosy, and all their own, 

She and her mother lived alone. 

Safe were the two, with their frugal store, 

From all of the many who passed their door ; 

For Jennie's mother was strange to fears, 

And Jennie was large for fifteen years. 

1 From Centennial Rhymes. Pages 35-44. Copyright by Harper & 
Brothers. 



Enterprise and Courage. 279 

One night, when the sun had crept to bed, 
And rain-clouds lingered overhead, 
And sent their surly drops for proof 
To drum a tune on the cottage roof, 
Close after a knock at the outer door, 
There entered a dozen dragoons or more. 
Their red coats, stained by the muddy road, 
That they were British soldiers showed ; 
The captain his hostess bent to greet, 
Saying, " Madam, please give us a bit to eat ; 
We will pay you well, and, if may be, 
This bright-eyed girl for pouring our tea ; 
Then we must dash ten miles ahead, 
To catch a rebel colonel abed. 
He is visiting home, as doth appear ; 
We w r ill make his pleasure cost him dear." 
And they fell on the hasty supper with zeal, 
Close-watched the while by Jennie McNeal. 
For the gray-haired colonel they hovered near, 
Had been her true friend, kind and dear ; 
So sorrow for him she could but feel, 
Brave, grateful-hearted Jennie McNeal. 

With never a thought or a moment more, 
Bare-headed she slipped from the cottage door, 
Ran out where the horses were left to feed, 
Unhitched and mounted the captain's steed, 
And down the hilly and rock-strewn way 
She urged the fiery horse of gray. 
Around her slender and cloakless form 
Pattered and moaned the ceaseless storm ; 



280 Speaker and Reader. 

Secure and tight, a gloveless hand 
Grasped the reins with stern command ; 
And full and black her long hair streamed, 
Whenever the ragged lightning gleamed ; 
And on she rushed for the colonel's weal, 
Brave, lioness-hearted Jennie McNeal. 

Hark ! from the hills, a moment mute, 
Came a clatter of hoofs in hot pursuit ; 
And a cry from the foremost trooper said, 
" Halt ! or your blood be on your head!" 
She heeded it not, and not in vain 
She lashed the horse with the bridle-rein. 
So into the night the gray horse strode ; 
His shoes hewed fire from the rocky road ; 
And the high-born courage that never dies 
Flashed from his rider's coal-black eyes. 
The pebbles flew from the fearful race ; 
The rain-drops grasped at her glowing face. 
"On, on, brave beast!" with loud appeal, 
Cried eager, resolute Jennie McNeal. 

"Halt!" once more came the voice of dread; 
"Halt! or your blood be on your head!" 
Then, no one answering to the calls, 
Sped after her a volley of balls. 
They passed her in her rapid flight, 
They screamed to her left, they screamed to her right ; 
But, rushing still o'er the slippery track, 
She sent no token of answer back, 
Except a silvery laughter-peal, 
Brave, merry-hearted Jennie McNeal. 



Enterprise and Courage. 281 

So on she rushed, at her own good will, 

Through wood and valley, o'er plain and hill ; 

The gray horse did his duty well, 

Till all at once he stumbled and fell, 

Himself escaping the nets of harm, 

But flinging the girl with a broken arm. 

Still undismayed by the numbing pain, 

She clung to the horse's bridle-rein, 

And gently bidding him to stand, 

Petted him with her able hand ; 

Then sprung again to the saddle-bow, 

And shouted, " One more trial now!" 

As if ashamed of the heedless fall, 

He gathered his strength once more for all, 

And, galloping down a hillside steep, 

Gained on the troopers at every leap 

No more the high-bred steed did reel, 

But ran his best for Jennie McNeal. 

They were a furlong behind, or more, 
When the girl burst through the colonel's door, 
Her poor arm helpless, hanging with pain, 
And she all drabbled and drenched with rain, 
But her cheeks as red as fire-brands are, 
And her eyes as bright as a blazing star, 
And shouted, " Quick ! be quick, I say ! 
They come! they come! Away! away!" 
Then sunk on the rude white floor of deal, 
Poor, brave, exhausted Jennie McNeal. 

The startled colonel sprang, and pressed 
The wife and children to his breast, 



282 Speaker and Reader. 

And turned away from his fireside bright, 

And glided into the stormy night ; 

Then soon and safely made his way 

To where the patriot army lay. 

But first he bent, in the dim fire-light, 

And kissed the forehead broad and white, 

And blessed the girl who had ridden so well 

To keep him out of a prison-cell. 

The girl roused up at the martial din, 

Just as the troopers came rushing in, 

And laughed, e'en in the midst of a moan, 

Saying, " Good sirs, your bird has flown. 

'T is I who have scared him from his nest ; 

So deal with me now as you think best." 

But the grand young captain bowed, and said, 

" Never you hold a moment's dread. 

Of womankind I must crown you queen ; 

So brave a girl I have never seen. 

Wear this gold ring as your valor's due ; 

And when peace comes I will come for you." 

But Jennie's face an arch smile wore, 

As she said, " There's a lad in Putnam's corps, 

Who told me the same, long time ago ; 

You two would never agree, I know. 

I promised my love to be true as steel," 

Said good, sure-hearted Jennie McNeal. 



% 



Enterprise and Courage. 283 

THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. 
William E. Aytoun. 

Had I been there with sword in hand, 

And fifty Camerons by, 
That day through high Dunedin's streets 

Had peal'd the slogan-cry. 
Not all their troops of trampling horse, 

Nor might of mailed men — 
Not all the rebels in the south 

Had borne us backward then ! 
Once more his foot on Highland heath 

Had trod as free as air, 
Or I, and all who bore my name, 

Been laid around him there ! 

It might not be. They placed him next 

Within the solemn hall, 
Where once the Scottish kings were throned 

Amidst their nobles all. 
But there was dust of vulgar feet 

On that polluted floor, 
And perjured traitors fill'd the place 

Where good men sate before. 
With savage glee came Warriston 

To read the murderous doom ; 
And then uprose the great Montrose 

In the middle of the room : 

" Now, by my faith as belted knight 
And by the name I bear, 



284 Speaker and Reader. 

And by the bright St. Andrew's cross 

That waves above us there — 
Yea, by a greater, mightier oath — 

And oh that such should be ! — 
By that dark stream of royal blood 

That lies 'twixt you and me — 
I have not sought in battlefield 

A wreath of such renown, 
Nor dared I hope on my dying day 

To win the martyr's crown ! 

" There is a chamber far away 

Where sleep the good and brave, 
But a better place ye have named for me 

Than by my fathers' grave. 
For truth and right, 'gainst treason's might, 

This hand hath always striven, 
And ye raise it up for a witness still 

In the eye of earth and heaven. 
Then nail my head on yonder tower — 

Give every town a limb — 
And God who made shall gather them : 

I go from you to Him ! " 

The morning dawn'd full darkly, 

The rain came flashing down, 
And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt 

Lit up the gloomy town ; 
The thunder crash 'd across the heaven, 

The fatal hour was come ; 
Yet aye broke in, with muffled beat, 

The 'larum of the drum. 






Enterprise and Courage. 285 

There was madness on the earth below 

And anger in the sky, 
And young and old, and rich and poor, 

Came forth to see him die. 

"He is coming! he is coming!" 

Like a bridegroom from his room, 
Came the hero from his prison 

To the scaffold and the doom. 
There was glory on his forehead, 

There was lustre in his eye, 
And he never walk'd to battle 

More proudly than to die ; 
There was color in his visage, 

Though the cheeks of all were wan, 
And they marvel'd as they saw him pass, 

That great and goodly man ! 

A beam of light fell o'er him, 

Like a glory round the shriven, 
And he climb'd the lofty ladder 

As it were the path to heaven. 
Then came a flash from out the cloud, 

And a stunning thunder-roll ; 
And no man dared to look aloft, 

For fear was on every soul. 
There was another heavy sound, 

A hush and then a groan ; 
And darkness swept across the sky — 

The work of death was done ! 



286 Speaker and Reader. 

THE EXILE OF THE ACADIANS. 1 
Henry W. Longfellow. 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a summons 

sonorous 
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows 

a drum beat. 
Thronged erelong was the church with men. Without, 

in the churchyard, 
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and 

hung on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from 

the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 

proudly among them 
Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 

clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 

and casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous 

portal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 

the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the 

steps of the altar, 
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal 

commission. 

1 From Longfellow 's Poetical Works. Pages 79, 80. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co 



Enterprise and Courage. 287 

"You are convened this day," he said," by his Majesty's 

orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 

answered his kindness, 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make 

and my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must 

be grievous. 
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of 

our monarch ; 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 

of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 

from this province 
Be transported' to other lands. God grant you may- 
dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people ! 
Prisoners now I declare you ; for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure ! " 
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of 

summer, 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field and shatters 

his windows, 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 

from the house-roofs, 
Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclo- 
sures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 

the speaker. 



288 Speaker and Header. 

Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 

then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger. 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 

doorway. 
Vain was the hope of escape ; and cries and fierce 

imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 

heads of the others 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 

blacksmith, 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 

wildly he shouted, — 
"Down with the tyrants of England! we never have 

sworn them allegiance ! 
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes 

and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of 

a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 

the pavement. 

JAFFAR. 

Leigh Hunt. 

Jaffar, the Barmecide, the good Vizier, 

The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer, — 

Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust ; 



Enterprise and Courage. 289 

And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust 
Of what the good, and e'en the bad might say, 
Ordain' d that no man living from that day 
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death. 
All Araby and Persia held their breath. 

All but the brave Mondeer. — He, proud to show 
How far for love a grateful soul could go, 
And facing death for very scorn and grief 
(For his great heart wanted a great relief), 
Stood forth in Bagdad, daily in the square. 
There once had stood a happy house, and there 
Harangued the tremblers at the scymetar 
On all they owed to the divine Jaffar. 

" Bring me this man," the caliph cried: the man 
Was brought, was gazed upon. The mutes began 
To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords," cried he; 
M From bonds far worse Jaffar deliver'd me ; 
From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears ; 
Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears ; 
Restor'd me, loved me, put me on a par 
With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar?" 

Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this 

The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss, 

Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate 

Might smile upon another half as great. 

He said, " Let worth grow frenzied if it will ; 

The caliph's judgment shall be master still. 

Go, and since gifts so move thee, take this gem, 



290 Speaker and Header, 

The richest in the Tartar's diadem, 

And hold the giver as thou deemest fit." 

" Gifts!" cried the friend. He took; and holding it 

High toward the heavens, as though to meet his star, 

Exclaim'd, "This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffar. " 

LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER. 

Thomas Campbell. 

A chieftain to the Highlands bound, 
Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry ! 

And I '11 give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry." 

"Now, who be ye would cross Lochgyle, 
This dark and stormy water?" 

" Oh ! I 'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 
And this Lord Ullin's daughter. 

"And fast before her father's men 
Three days we 've fled together ; 

For should he find us in the glen, 
My blood would stain the heather. 

" His horsemen hard behind us ride ; 

Should they our steps discover, 
Then who will cheer my bonny bride 

When they have slain her lover?" 



Enterprise and Courage, 291 

Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, 
" I '11 go, my chief — I'm ready. 

It is not for your silver bright, 
But for your winsome lady : 

" And by my word ! the bonny bird 

In danger shall not tarry ; 
So, though the waves are raging white, 

I '11 row you o'er the ferry." 

By this the storm grew loud apace ; 

The water-wraith was shrieking ; 
And in the scowl of heaven each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 

But still as wilder blew the wind, 

And as the night grew drearer, 
Adown the glen rode armed men — 

Their trampling sounded nearer. 

" Oh ! haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, 
" Though tempests round us gather ; 

I '11 meet the raging of the skies, 
But not an angry father." 

The boat has left a stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her — 
When, oh ! too strong for human hand, 

The tempest gathered o'er her. 

And still they rowed amidst the roar 

Of waters fast prevailing — 
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore ; 

His wrath was changed to wailing. 



292 Speaker and Reader. 

For sore dismayed through storm and shade, 

His child he did discover ; 
One lovely hand she stretched for aid, 

And one was round her lover. 

" Come back! come back!" he cried in grief, 

"Across this stormy water; 
And I '11 forgive your Highland chief, 

My daughter ! — Oh ! my daughter ! " 

'T was vain; — the loud waves lashed the shore, 

Return or aid preventing. 
The waters wild went o'er his child, 

And he was left lamenting. 

% 

SIR GALAHAD. 

Alfred Tennyson. 

My good blade carves the casques of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, 

The hard brands shiver on the steel, 
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, 

The horse and rider reel : 
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, 

And when the tide of combat stands, 
Perfume and flowers fall in showers, 

That lightly rain from ladies' hands. 



Enterprise and Courage, 293 

How sweet are looks that ladies bend 

On whom their favors fall ! 
For them I battle till the end, 

To save from shame and thrall : 
But all my heart is drawn above, 

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine : 
I never felt the kiss of love, 

Nor maiden's hand in mine. 
More bounteous aspects on me beam, 

Me mightier transports move and thrill ; 
So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer 

A virgin heart in work and will. 

When down the stormy crescent goes, 

A light before me swims, 
Between dark stems the forest glows, 

I hear a noise of hymns : 
Then by some secret shrine I ride ; 

I hear a voice, but none are there ; 
The stalls are void, the doors are wide, 

The tapers burning fair. 
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, 

The silver vessels sparkle clean, 
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, 

And solemn chants resound between. 

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres 

I find a magic bark ; 
I leap on board : no helmsman steers : 

I float till all is dark. 
A gentle sound, an awful light ! 

Three angels bear the Holy Grail : 



294 Speaker and Reader. 

With folded feet, in stoles of white, 

On sleeping wings they sail. 
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 

My spirit beats her mortal bars, 
As down dark tides the glory slides, 

And star-like mingles with the stars. 

When on my goodly charger borne 

Thro' dreaming towns I go, 
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, 

The streets are dumb with snow. 
The tempest crackles on the leads, 

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail ; 
But o'er the dark a glory spreads, 

And gilds the driving hail. 
I leave the plain, I climb the height ; 

No branchy thicket shelter yields ; 
But blessed forms in whistling storms 

Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields. 

A maiden knight — to me is given 

Such hope, I know not fear ; 
I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven 

That often meet me here. 
I muse on joy that will not cease, 

Pure spaces clothed in living beams, 
Pure lilies of eternal peace, 

Whose odors haunt my dreams ; 
And stricken by an angel's hand, 

This mortal armor that I wear, 
This weight and size, this heart and eyes 

Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. 



Enterprise and Courage. 295 

The clouds are broken in the sky, 

And thro' the mountain-walls 
A rolling organ-harmony 

Swells up, and shakes, and falls. 
Then move the trees, the copses nod, 

Wings flutter, voices hover clear : 
"O just and faithful knight of God! 

Ride on! the prize is near." 
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ; 

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, 
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, 

Until I find the Holy Grail. 

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 1 

Wendell Phillips. 

If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should 
take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no lan- 
guage rich enough to paint the great captain of the 
nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of 
Washington, I should take it from your hearts, — you 
who think no marble white enough on which to carve 
the name of the Father of his Country. But I am to 
tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, 
who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it 
from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who 

1 From Speeches and Lectures. Pages 476-494. Lee & Shepard. 



296 Speaker and Reader. 

despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated 
him because he had beaten them in battle. 

Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, 
at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of 
the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw 
an army till he was forty ; this man never saw a soldier 
till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own 
army — out of what ? Englishmen, — the best blood in 
Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen, — the 
best blood of the island. And with it he conquered 
what? Englishmen, — their equals. This man manu- 
factured his army out of what ? Out of what you call 
the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by 
two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of 
them imported into the island within four years, unable 
to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet 
out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass he 
forged a thunderbolt and hurled it at what ? At the 
proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him 
home conquered ; at the most warlike blood in Europe, 
the French, and put them under his feet ; at the pluck- 
iest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked 
home to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at 
least this man was a soldier. 

Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back 
with me to the commencement of the century, and 
select what statesman you please. Let him be either 
American or European ; let him have a brain the result 
of six generations of culture ; let him have the ripest 
training of university routine ; let him add to it the 
better education of practical life ; crown his temples 



Enterprise and Courage. 297 

with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the 
man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine ad- 
mirer will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes have 
placed on the brow of this negro, — rare military skill, 
profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot 
out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood 
of its sons, — anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, 
and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams, 
before any Englishman or American had won the right ; 
and yet this is the record which the history of rival 
states makes up for this inspired black of St. Domingo. 

Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, 
and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best 
soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think 
of the negro's sword. 

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his 
way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of 
blood. This man never broke his word. I would call 
him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and 
the state he founded went down with him into his 
grave. I would call him Washington, but the great 
Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire 
rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest 
village of his dominions. 

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not 
with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty 
years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of 
history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the 
Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, 
choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of 
our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the 



298 Speaker and Header. 

sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, 
the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, 

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 



% 



SPEECH OF VINDICATION ON BEING 
CONDEMNED TO DEATH. 1 

Robert Emmet. 

My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice — the 
blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial 
terrors which surround your victim ; it circulates warmly 
and unruffled through the channels which God created 
for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, 
for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be 
ye patient ! I have but a few words more to say ; I 
am going to my cold and silent grave ; my lamp of life 
is nearly extinguished ; my race is run ; the grave opens 
to receive me, and I sink into its bosom ! I have but 
one request to ask at my departure from this world ; it 
is the charity of its silence ! Let no man write my 
epitaph ; for as no man who knows my motives dare 
now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance 
asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity 
and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other 
times and other men can do justice to my character. 

1 From Life of Robert Em?net. John W. Burke. Pages 145, 146. 
Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Co. 



Enterprise and Courage. 299 

When my country takes her place among the nations of 
the earth — then, and not till then — let my epitaph be 
written. I have done. 



% 

GLADSTONE'S MANHOOD. 1 

Lord Rosebery. 

There was no expression so frequently on Mr. Glad- 
stone's lips as the word " manhood." Speaking of 
any one, he would say with an accent that no one who 
heard him could ever forget : " So-and-so had the man- 
hood to do this ; So-and-so had the manhood to do 
that " ; and no one will ever forget the scorn he could 
put into the negative phrase, " So-and-so had not the 
manhood to do this ; So-and-so had not the manhood to 
say that." It was obvious from all he said and from all 
he did that the virile virtue of manhood, in which he 
comprehended courage, righteous daring, the disdain of 
odds against him — that virile virtue of manhood was 
perhaps the one which he put highest. This country 
loves brave men. Mr. Gladstone was the bravest of 
the brave. There was no cause so hopeless that he 
was afraid to undertake it ; there was no amount of 
opposition that would cow him when once he had under- 
taken it. It was manhood that formed the base of Mr. 
Gladstone's character. 

1 From Appreciations and Addresses. Page no. John Lane. 



300 Speaker and Reader. 

SAINT CRISPIN'S DAY. 1 

William Shakespeare. 

Who 's he that wishes that we now had here 

But one ten thousand of those men in England 

That do no work to-day ? No, my fair cousin ; 

If we are marked to die, we are enow 

To do our country loss ; and if to live, 

The fewer men, the greater share of honor. 

God's will ! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, 

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost ; 

It yearns me not if men my garments wear ; 

Such outward things dwell not in my desires. 

But if it be a sin to covet honor, 

I am the most offending soul alive. 

No, faith, my Coz, wish not a man from England : 

God's peace ! I would not lose so great an honor 

As one man more, methinks, would share from me, 

For the best hope I have. O ! do not wish one more : 

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 

That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 

Let him depart ; his passport shall be made, 

And crowns for convoy put into his purse : 

We would not die in that man's company 

That fears his fellowship to die with us. 

This day is called the feast of Crispian : 

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 

1 From King Henry V. Scene III. 






Enterprise and Courage. 301 

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, 

And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

He that shall live this day, and see old age, 

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, 

And say, " To-morrow is Saint Crispian": 

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 

And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." 

Old men forget ; yet all shall be forgot, 

But he '11 remember with advantages 

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, 

Familiar in his mouth as household words, 

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, 

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. 

This story shall the good man teach his son ; 

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 

From this day to the ending of the world 

But we in it shall be remembered ; 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ; 

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile 

This day shall gentle his condition : 

And gentlemen in England now a-bed 

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. 



% 



302 Speaker and Reader. 

THE WAR SONG OF DINAS VAWR. 

Thomas Love Peacock. 

The mountain sheep are sweeter, 

But the valley sheep are fatter ; 
We therefore deemed it meeter 

To carry off the latter. 
We made an expedition ; 

We met an host and quelled it ; 
We forced a strong position, 

And killed the men who held it. 

On Dyfed's richest valley, 

Where herds of kine were browsing, 
We made a mighty sally, 

To furnish our carousing. 
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us : 

We met them, and o'erthrew them ; 
They struggled hard to beat us ; 

But we conquered them and slew them. 

As we drove our prize at leisure, 

The king marched forth to catch us : 
His rage surpassed all measure, 

But his people could not match us. 
He fled to his hall-pillars ; 

And, ere our force we led off, 
Some sacked his house and cellars, 

While others cut his head off. 



Enterprise and Courage, 303 

We there, in strife bewildering, 

Spilt blood enough to swim in : 
We orphaned many children, 

And widowed many women. 
The eagles and the ravens 

We glutted with our foemen : 
The heroes and the cravens, 

The spearmen and the bowmen. 

We brought away from battle, 

And much their land bemoaned them, 
Two thousand head of cattle, 

And the head of him who owned them : 
Ednyfed, King of Dyfed, 

His head was borne before us ; 
His wines and beasts supplied our feasts, 

And his overthrow our chorus. 



THE OLD SCOTTISH CAVALIER. 
William E. Aytoun. 

Come listen to another song, 

Should make your heart beat high, 

Bring crimson to your forehead, 
And the lustre to your eye ; — 

It is a song of olden time, 
Of days long since gone by, 



304 Speaker and Reader. 

And of a Baron stout and bold 
As e'er wore sword on thigh ! 

Like a brave old Scottish cavalier, 
All of the olden time ! 

He kept his castle in the north : 

Hard by the thundering Spey ; 
And a thousand vassels dwelt around, 

All of his kindred they. 
And not a man of all that clan 

Had ever ceased to pray 
For the Royal race they loved so well, 

Though exiled far away 

From the steadfast Scottish cavaliers, 
All of the olden time ! 

His father drew the righteous sword 

For Scotland and her claims, 
Among the loyal gentlemen 

And chiefs of ancient names. 
Who swore to fight or fall beneath 

The standard of King James, 
And died at Killiecrankie pass 

With the glory of the Graemes ; 

Like a true old Scottish cavalier, 
All of the olden time ! 

He never owned the foreign rule, 

No master he obeyed, 
But kept his clan in peace at home, 

From foray and from raid ; 
And when they asked him for his oath, 

He touched his glittering blade, 






Enterprise and Courage, 305 

And pointed to his bonnet blue, 
That bore the white cockade : 

Like a real old Scottish cavalier, 
All of the olden time ! 

At length the news ran through the land — 

The Prince had come again ! 
That night the fiery cross was sped 

O'er mountain and through glen ; 
And our old Baron rose in might, 

Like a lion from his den, 
And rode away across the hills 

To Charlie and his men, 

With the valiant Scottish cavaliers, 
All of the olden time! 

He was the first that bent the knee 

When the Standard waved abroad, 
He was the first that charged the foe 

On Preston's bloody sod ; 
And ever, in the van of fight, 

The foremost still he trod, 
Until, in bleak Culloden's heath, 

He gave his soul to God, 

Like a good old Scottish cavalier, 
All of the olden time ! 

Oh ! never shall we know again 

A heart so stout and true — 
The olden times have passed away, 

And weary are the new : 
The fair White Rose has faded 

From the garden where it grew, 



306 Speaker and Reader. 

And no fond tears save those of heaven 
The glorious bed bedew 

Of the last old Scottish cavalier, 
All of the olden time! 



THE GLOVE AND THE LIONS. 
Leigh Hunt. 

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal 

sport, 
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the 

court. 
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their 

pride, 
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one 

for whom he sighed ; 
And truly 't was a gallant thing to see that crowning 

show, 
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal 

beasts below. 

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing 
jaws ; 

They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind 
went with their paws ; 

With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on 
one another, 

Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thun- 
derous smother ; 



Enterprise and Courage. 307 

The bloody foam above the bars came whisking 

through the air ; 
Said Francis then, " Faith, gentlemen, we 're better 

here than there." 

De Lorge's love o'erheard the king, a beauteous, 

lively dame, 
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which 

always seemed the same ; 
She thought, "The Count, my lover, is brave as brave 

can be ; 
He surely would do wondrous things to show his 

love of me ! 
King, ladies, lovers, all look on ; the occasion is 

divine ; 
I '11 drop my glove to prove his love ; great glory 

will be mine ! " 

She dropped her glove to prove his love, then looked 
at him and smiled : 

He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions 
wild : 

The leap was quick, return was quick, he soon re- 
gained his place, 

Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in 
the lady's face! 

"By heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he 
rose from where he sat ; 

"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task 
like that ! " 



308 Speaker and Reader. 

HORATIUS. 1 
Thomas B. Macaulay. 

Lars Porsena of Clusium 

By the Nine Gods he swore 
That the great house of Tarquin 

Should suffer wrong no more. 
By the Nine Gods he swore it, 

And named a trysting day, 
And bade his messengers ride forth, 
East and west and south and north, 

To summon his array. 

East and west and south and north 

The messengers ride fast, 
And tower and town and cottage 

Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
Shame on the false Etruscan 

Who lingers in his home, 
When Porsena of Clusium 

Is on the march for Rome ! 

And now hath every city 

Sent up her tale of men ; 
The foot are fourscore thousand, 

The horse are thousands ten. 

But by the yellow Tiber 
Was tumult and affright ; 

1 From Lays of Ancient Rome. Pages 39-60. Harper & Brothers. 



Enterprise and Courage. 309 

From all the spacious champaign 
To Rome men took their flight. 

The Fathers of the City, 

They sat all night and day, 
For every hour some horseman came 

With tidings of dismay. 

And nearer fast and nearer 
Doth the red whirlwind come ; 

And plainly and more plainly 

Now through the gloom appears, 
Far to left and far to right, 
In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
The long array of helmets bright, 
The long array of spears. 

But the Consul's brow was sad, 

And the Consul's speech was low, 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge, 

What hope to save the town?" 

Then out spake brave Horatius, 

The Captain of the Gate : 
"To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late. 



310 Speaker and Reader. 

And how can man die better 
Than facing fearful odds, 

For the ashes of his fathers 
And the temples of his Gods ? 

" Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, 

With all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon strait path a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Now who will stand on either hand, 

And keep the bridge with me ? " 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius — 

A Ramnian proud was he : 
" Lo, I will stand at thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spake strong Herminius — 

Of Titian blood was he : 
" I will abide on thy left side, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

" Horatius," quoth the Consul, 
"As thou sayest, so let it be." 

And straight against that great array 
Forth went the dauntless Three. 

Now while the Three were tightening 
Their harness on their backs, 



Enterprise and Courage. 3 1 1 

The Consul was the foremost man 

To take in hand an axe : 
And Fathers mixed with Commons 

Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, 
And smote upon the planks above, 

And loosed the props below. 

Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 

Right glorious to behold, 
Came flashing back the noonday light, 
Rank behind rank, like surges bright 

Of a broad sea of gold. 
Four hundred trumpets sounded 

A peal of warlike glee, 
As that great host, with measured tread, 
And spears advanced and ensigns spread, 
Rolled slowly towards the bridge's head, 

Where stood the dauntless Three. 

And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that deep array ; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew, 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 

To win the narrow way ; 

Aunus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Vines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
And Picus, long to Clusium 

Vassal in peace and war, 



312 Speaker and Reader. 

Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 

Into the stream beneath ; 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth ; 
At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust, 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

Then Ocnus of Falerii 

Rushed on the Roman Three ; 

And Lausulus of Urgo, 
The rover of the sea ; 

And Aruns of Volsinium, 

Who slew the great wild boar, 

Herminius smote down Aruns ; 

Lartius laid Ocnus low ; 
Right to the heart of Lausulus 

Horatius sent a blow. 

Six spears' length from the entrance 

Halted that deep array, 
And for a space no man came forth 

To win the narrow way. 

But hark! the cry is "Astur!" 
And lo ! the ranks divide, 

And the great Lord of Luna 
Comes with his stately stride. 



Enterprise and Courage. 3 1 3 

He smiled on those bold Romans 

A smile serene and high ; 
He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 

And scorn was in his eye. 

Then, whirling up his broadsword 

With both hands to the height, 
He rushed against Horatius, 

And smote with all his might. 
With shield and blade Horatius 

Right deftly turned the blow. 
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh ; 
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh : 
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry 

To see the red blood flow. 

He reeled, and on Herminius 

He leaned one breathing-space ; 
Then, like a wildcat mad with wounds, 

Sprang right at Astur's face. 

And the great Lord of Luna 

Fell at that deadly stroke, 
As falls on Mount Alvernus 

A thunder-smitten oak. 

But all Etruria's noblest 

Felt their hearts sink to see 
On the earth the bloody corpses, 

In the path the dauntless Three. 



314 Speaker and Reader. 

Was none who would be foremost 
To lead such dire attack : 

But those behind cried " Forward !" 
And those before cried "Back!'" 



But meanwhile axe and lever 

Have manfully been plied, 
And now the bridge hangs tottering 

Above the boiling tide. 
" Come back, come back, Horatius ! " 

Loud cried the Fathers all. 
" Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back ere the ruin fall ! " 

Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back ; 
And, as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 

And on the farther shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 

They would have crossed once more. 

But with a crash like thunder 
Fell every loosened beam. 

Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before 

And the broad flood behind. 



Enterprise and Courage. 3 1 5 

"O Tiber! father Tiber! 

To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 

Take thou in charge this day!" 
So he spake, and speaking sheathed 

The good sword by his side, 
And with his harness on his back 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 

No sound of joy or sorrow 

Was heard from either bank ; 
But friends and foes in dumb surprise, 
With parted lips and straining eyes, 

Stood gazing where he sank ; 
And when above the surges 

They saw his crest appear, 
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 
And even the ranks of Tuscany 

Could scarce forbear to cheer. 

But fiercely ran the current, 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing, 

And he was sore in pain, 
And heavy with his armor, 

And spent with changing blows ; 
And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 

Never, I ween, did swimmer, 

In such an evil case, 
Struggle through such a raging flood 

Safe to the landing place ; 



3i 6 Speaker and Reader. 

But his limbs were borne up bravely 

By the brave heart within, 
And our good father Tiber 

Bare bravely up his chin. 

And now he feels the bottom ; 

Now on dry earth he stands ; 
Now round him throng the Fathers, 

To press his gory hands ; 
And now, with shouts and clapping, 

And noise of weeping loud, 
He enters through the River-Gate, 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 

% 

HARMOSAN. 
Richard C. Trench. 

Now the third and fatal conflict for the Persian throne 

was done, 
And the Moslem's fiery valor had the crowning victory 

won. 

Harrnosan, the last and boldest the invader to defy, 
Captive, overborne by numbers, they were bringing 
forth to die. 



Enterprise and Courage. 3 1 7 

Then exclaimed that noble captive : " Lo, I perish in 

my thirst ; 
Give me but one drink of water, and let then arrive 

the worst ! " 



In his hand he took the goblet : but a while the draught 

forbore, 
Seeming doubtfully the purpose of the foeman to 

explore. 

Well might then have paused the bravest — for, around 

him, angry foes 
With a hedge of naked weapons did the lonely man 

enclose. 

"But what fearest thou?" cried the caliph; "is it, 
friend, a secret blow ? 

Fear it not ! our gallant Moslems, no such treacher- 
ous dealing know. 

"Thou may' st quench thy thirst securely, for thou 

shalt not die before 
Thou hast drunk that cup of water — this reprieve is 

thine — no more!" 

Quick the satrap dashed the goblet down to earth 

with ready hand, 
And the liquid sank forever, lost amid the burning 

sand. 



318 Speaker and Reader. 

"Thou hast said that mine my life is, till the water 

of that cup 
I have drained ; then bid thy servants that spilled 

water gather up ! " 

For a moment stood the caliph as by doubtful passions 
stirred — 

Then exclaimed : " Forever sacred must remain a mon- 
arch's word. 

"Bring another cup, and straightway to the noble 

Persian give : 
Drink, I said before, and perish — now I bid thee 

drink and live ! " 

% 

THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. 1 
William Cowper. 

Toll for the brave ! 

The brave that are no more ! 
All sunk beneath the wave, 

Fast by their native shore ! 

Eight hundred of the brave, 
Whose courage well was tried, 

Had made the vessel heel, 
And laid her on her side. 

1 From Cowper 's Poetical Works. Vol. III. Little, Brown & Co. 



Enterprise and Courage. 319 

A land breeze shook the shrouds, 

And she was overset ; 
Down went the Royal George, 

With all her crew complete. 

Toll for the brave ! 

Brave Kempenfelt is gone ; 
His last sea-fight is fought ; 

His work of glory done. 

It was not in the battle ; 

No tempest gave the shock ; 
She sprang no fatal leak ; 

She ran upon no rock. 

His sword was in its sheath ; 

His fingers held the pen, 
When Kempenfelt went down 

With twice four hundred men. 

Weigh the vessel up, 

Once dreaded by our foes ! 
And mingle with our cup 

The tear that England owes. 

Her timbers yet are sound, 

And she may float again 
Full charged with England's thunder, 

And plough the distant main. 

But Kempenfelt is gone, 

His victories are o'er ; 
And he and his eight hundred 

Shall plough the wave no more. 



320 Speaker and Header. 

DESCRIPTION OF MARMIONt 1 

Walter Scott. 

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode, 

Proudly his red-roan charger trode, 

His helm hung at the saddlebow ; 

Well by his visage you might know 

He was a stal worth knight, and keen, 

And had in many a battle been ; 

The scar on his brown cheek revealed 

A token true of Bosworth field ; 

His eyebrow dark, and eye to fire, 

Showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire ; 

Yet lines of thought upon his cheek 

Did deep design and counsel speak. 

His forehead, by his casque worn bare, 
His thick moustache, and curly hair, 
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there, 

But more through toil than age ; 
His square-turned joints, and strength of limb, 
Showed him no carpet knight so trim, 
But in close fight a champion grim, 
In camps a leader sage. 

Well was he armed from head to heel, 
In mail and plate of Milan steel ; 
But his strong helm, of mighty cost, 
Was all with burnished gold embossed ; 
Amid the plumage of the crest, 

1 From Marmion. Canto I, stanzas 5, 6. 



Enterprise and Courage. 321 

A falcon hovered on her nest, 

With wings outspread, and forward breast ; 

E'en such a falcon, on his shield, 

Soared sable in an azure field : 

The golden legend bore aright, 

" Who checks at me, to death is dight." 

Blue was the charger's broidered rein ; 

Blue ribbons decked his arching mane ; 

The knightly housing's ample fold 

Was velvet blue, and trapped with gold. 

LOCHINVAR. 1 

Walter Scott. 

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; 
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none, 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 

He swam the Esk River where ford there was none ; 

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late : 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

1 From Marmion. Canto V, stanza 12. 



322 Speaker and Reader. 

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, 
Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all : 
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 
" Oh come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 
Or to dance at our bridal, young , Lord Loch invar ? " 

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied: 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide — 
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." 

The bride kissed the goblet : the knight took it up, 
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, 
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, — 
"Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar. 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 
That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and 

plume ; 
And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'T were better by far 
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar/ ' 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood 
near ; 



Enterprise and Courage. 323 

So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! — 
"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and 

scaur ; 
They '11 have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young 

Lochinvar. 

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby 

clan ; 
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they 

ran : 
There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, 
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? 



HUNTING SONG. 

Walter Scott. 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 

On the mountain dawns the day, 

All the jolly chase is here, 

With hawk, and horse, and hunting-spear ! 

Hounds are in their couples yelling, 

Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, 

Merrily, merrily, mingle they, 

" Waken, lords and ladies gay." 



324 Speaker and Header. 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 

The mist has left the mountain gray, 

Springlets in the dawn are steaming, 

Diamonds on the brake are gleaming : 

And foresters have busy been, 

To track the buck in thicket green ; 

Now we come to chant our lay, 

"Waken, lords and ladies gay." 

Waken, lords and ladies gay, 
To the greenwood haste away ; 
We can show you where he lies, 
Fleet of foot and tall of size ; 
We can show the marks he made, 
When 'gainst the oak his antlers frayed ; 
You shall see him brought to bay, 
" Waken, lords and ladies gay." 

Louder, louder chant the lay, 
Waken, lords and ladies gay ! 
Tell them youth, and mirth, and glee, 
Run a course as well as we ; 
Time, stern huntsman ! who can balk, 
Stanch as hound, and fleet as hawk ; 
Think of this, and rise with day, 
Gentle lords and ladies gay. 



* 



Enterprise and Courage. 

THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR. 

Samuel J. Arnold. 

'T was in Trafalgar's bay, 
We saw the Frenchmen lay ; 

Each heart was bounding then. 
We scorn'd the foreign yoke, — 
Our ships were British oak, 

And hearts of oak our men. 

Our Nelson mark'd them on the wave, 
Thirteen cheers our gallant seamen gave, 

Nor thought of home and beauty. 
Along the line the signal ran — 
" England expects that every man 

This day will do his duty." 

And now the cannons roar 
Along the affrighted shore ; 

Brave Nelson led the way, 
His ship the " Victory" named: 
Long be that "Victory" famed, 

For Victory crown'd the day. 

But dearly was that conquest bought. 
For well the gallant hero fought 

For England, home, and beauty. 
He cried, as midst the fire he ran, 
" England shall find that every man 

This day shall do his duty!" 



5*$ 



326 Speaker and Header. 

At last the fatal wound, 
Which shed dismay around, 

The hero's breast received ; 
" Heav'n fights on our side ; 
The day 's our own," he cried : 

" Now long enough I 've lived. 

" In honor's cause my life was pass'd, 
In honor's cause I fall at last, 

For England, home, and beauty ! " 
Thus ending life as he began ; 
England confess'd that every man 

That day had done his duty. 

% 

BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 1 

Caroline E. S, Norton. 

A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, 
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth 

of woman's tears, 
But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood 

ebb'd away, 
And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he 

might say. 
The dying soldier falter'd as he took that comrade's 

hand, 

1 Fireside Encyclopedia of Poetry. Henry T. Coates. Pages 701, 
702. Porter & Coates. 



Enterprise and Courage. 327 

And he said, " I never more shall see my own, my 

native land ; 
Take a message and a token to some distant friends 

of mine, 
For I was born at Bingen — at Bingen on the Rhine. 



"Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet 

and crowd around 
To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard 

ground, 
That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day 

was done 
Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale beneath the 

setting sun. 
And 'midst the dead and dying were some grown 

old in wars, 
The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of 

many scars ; 
But some were young, and suddenly beheld life's 

morn decline, 
And one had come from Bingen, fair Bingen on the 

Rhine. 

"Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort 

her old age, 
And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home 

a cage, 
For my father was a soldier, and even as a child 
My heart leap'd forth to hear him tell of struggles 

fierce and wild ; 



328 Speaker and Reader. 

And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty 

hoard, 
I let them take what e'er they would, but kept my 

father's sword, 
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright 

light used to shine 
On the cottage wall at Bingen — calm Bingen on the 

Rhine. 



"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with 

drooping head, 
When the troops are marching home again with glad 

and gallant tread, 
But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and 

steadfast eye, 
For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to 

die. 
And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my 

name 
To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame, 
And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's 

sword and mine), 
For the honor of old Bingen — dear Bingen on the 

Rhine. 

" There's another — not a sister: in the happy days 
gone by, 

You 'd have known her by the merriment that spar- 
kled in her eye ; 

Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning, 



Enterprise and Courage. 329 

friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes 

heaviest mourning ; 
Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon 

be risen 
My body will be out of pain — : my soul be out of 

prison), 

1 dream'd I stood with her, and saw the yellow sun- 

light shine 
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen — fair Bingen on the 
Rhine. 

" I saw the blue Rhine sweep along — I heard, or 

seemed to hear, 
The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet 

and clear, 
And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting 

hill, 
The echoing chorus sounded through the evening 

calm and still ; 
And her glad blue eyes were on me as we pass'd 

with friendly talk 
Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remem- 
ber' d walk, 
And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine ; 
But we '11 meet no more at Bingen — loved Bingen 

on the Rhine." 

His voice grew faint and hoarser — his grasp was 

childish weak — 
His eyes put on a dying look — he sigh'd and ceased 

to speak ; 



330 Speaker and Header. 

His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life 

had fled — 
The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land was 

dead ! 
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she 

look'd down 
On the red sand of the battlefield, with bloody 

corpses strown ; 
Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light 

seem'd to shine, 
As it shone on distant Bingen — fair Bingen on the 

Rhine. 

MARCO BOZZARIS. 

Fitz-Greene Halleck. 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 

Should tremble at his power. 
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror ; 

In dreams his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet -ring — 
Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king; 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden's garden bird. 



Enterprise and Courage. 331 

At midnight, in the forest shades, 

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band — 
True as the steel of their tried blades, 

Heroes in heart and hand. 
There had the Persian's thousands stood, 
There had the glad earth drunk their blood, 

On old Plataea's day ; 
And now there breathed that haunted air 
The sons of sires who conquered there, 
With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far, as they. 

An hour passed on — the Turk awoke ; 

That bright dream was his last ; 
He woke — to hear his sentries shriek, 

"To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! " 
He woke — to die midst flame and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band : 

" Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 
Strike — for your altars and your fires; 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires, 
God, and your native land ! " 

They fought, like brave men, long and well ; 

They piled the ground with Moslem slain ; 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 



332 Speaker and Reader. 

His few surviving comrades saw 

His smile, when rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his eyelids close 
Calmly as to a night's repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 



IVRY. 

Thomas B. Macaulay. 

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor 

drest, 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant 

crest. 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern 

and high. 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing 

to wing, 
Down all our line, a deafening shout, " God save our 

Lord the king ! " 
" And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he 

may, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the 

ranks of war, 
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre." 



Enterprise and Courage. 333 

Hurrah ! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled 

din 
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring 

culverin ! 
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's 

plain, 
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. 
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of 

France, 
Charge for the golden lilies — upon them with the 

lance ! 
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears 

in rest, 
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow- 
white crest ; 
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a 

guiding star, 
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre. 

Now, God be praised, the day is ours ! Mayenne hath 

turned his rein. 
D'Aumale hath cried for quarter ; the Flemish count 

is slain ; 
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a 

Biscay gale ; 
The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and 

cloven mail ; 
And then we thought on vengeance, and all along our 

van, 
" Remember St. Bartholomew," was passed from man 

to man. 



334 Speaker and Reader. 

But out spake gentle Henry, " No Frenchman is my 

foe ; 
Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren 

go." 
Oh ! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in 

war, 
As our Sovereign Lord King Henry, the soldier of 

Navarre ! 



% 



YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. 

Thomas Campbell. 

Ye mariners of England, 

That guard our native seas, 

Whose flag has braved a thousand years 

The battle and the breeze ! 

Your glorious standard launch again, 

To match another foe ; 

And sweep through the deep 

While the stormy winds do blow ; 

While the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow ! 

The spirits of your fathers 

Shall start from every wave ; 

For the deck it was their field of fame, 

And ocean was their grave. 

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, 



Enterprise and Courage. 335 

Your manly hearts shall glow, 
As ye sweep through the deep 
While the stormy winds do blow ; 
While the battle rages loud and long, 
And the stormy winds do blow ! 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep ; 

Her march is o'er the mountain wave, 

Her home is on the deep. 

With thunders from her native oak 

She quells the floods below, 

As they roar on the shore, 

When the stormy winds do blow — 

When the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow ! 

The meteor flag of England 

Shall yet terrific burn, 

Till danger's troubled night depart, 

And the star of peace return ; 

Then, then, ye ocean warriors, 

Our song and feast shall flow 

To the fame of your name, 

When the storm has ceased to blow — 

When the fiery fight is heard no more, 

And the storm has ceased to blow. 



% 



336 Speaker and Header. 

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC. 

Thomas Campbell. 

Of Nelson and the north, 

Sing the glorious day's renown, 
When to battle fierce came forth 

All the might of Denmark's crown, 
And her arms along the deep proudly shone ; 

By each gun the lighted brand 

In a bold, determined hand, 

And the prince of all the land 
Led them on. 

Like leviathans afloat, 

Lay their bulwarks on the brine ; 
While the sign of battle flew 

On the lofty British line : 
It was ten of April morn by the chime 

As they drifted on their path; 

There was silence deep as death, 

And the boldest held his breath 
For a time. 

But the might of England flush'd 

To anticipate the scene ; 
And her van the fleeter rush'd 

O'er the deadly space between. 
" Hearts of oak," our captains cried ; when each gun 

From its adamantine lips 

Spread a death-shade round the ships, 

Like the hurricane eclipse 
Of the sun. 



Enterprise and Courage. 337 

Again ! again*! again ! 

And the havoc did not slack, 
Till a feebler cheer the Dane 

To our cheering sent us back ; 
Their shots along the deep slowly boom : 

Then ceased, and all is wail, 

As they strike the shattered sail ; 

Or, in conflagration pale, 
Light the gloom. 

Now joy, old England raise ! 

For the tidings of thy might, 
By the festal cities' blaze, 

While the wine-cup shines in light ; 
And yet amidst that joy and uproar, 

Let us think of them that sleep 

Full many a fathom deep, 

By thy wild and stormy steep, 
Elsinore ! 

Brave hearts ! to Britain's pride, 

Once so faithful and so true, 
On the deck of Fame that died 

With the gallant good Riou : 
Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave ; 

While the billow mournful rolls, 

And the mermaid's song condoles, 

Singing glory to the souls 
Of the brave ! 



% 



^38 Speaker and Reader. 



HOHENLINDEN. 

Thomas Campbell. 

On Linden when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow ; 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight 
When the drum beat at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, 
Each horseman drew his battle blade, 
And furious every charger neighed 
To join the dreadful revelry. 

Then shook the hills, with thunder riven ; 
Then rushed the steed, to battle driven ; 
And louder than the bolts of heaven 
Far flashed the red artillery. 

But redder yet those fires shall glow 
On Linden's hills of crimsoned snow. 
And bloodier yet shall be the flow 
Of Iser rolling rapidly. 

'T is morn ; but scarce yon level sun 
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy. 



Enterprise and Courage. 339 

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave, 
And charge with all thy chivalry. 

Few, few shall part where many meet ; 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet ; 
And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 



«? 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

Lord Byron. 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still ! 



340 Speaker and Reader. 

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide, 
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances uplifted, the trumpet unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 

% 

THE EVE OF WATERLOO. 1 

Lord Byron. 

There was a sound of revelry by night, 
And Belgium's capital had gathered then 
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; 
A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like arising knell ! 

1 From Childe Harold, 



Enterprise and Courage, 341 

Did ye not hear it ? No ; 't was but the wind 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; 
On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; 
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet ; 
But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 
Arm ! arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and trembling of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated ; who could guess 
If evermore should meet those mutual eyes, 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise ! 

And there was mounting in hot haste ; the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 
And the deep thunder, peal on peal afar ; 
And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
Or whispering, with white lips, — " The foe ! They 
come ! they come ! " 

% 



342 Speaker and Reader. 



THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 

Alfred Tennyson. 

Half a league, half a league, 

Half a league onward, 
All in the valley of death 

Rode the six hundred. 
" Forward, the Light Brigade ! 
Charge for the guns ! " he said. 
Into the valley of death 

Rode the six hundred. 

" Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
Was there a man dismayed ? 
Not though the soldiers knew 

Some one had blundered : 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die : 
Into the valley of death 

Rode the six hundred. 

Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them 

Volleyed and thundered : 
Stormed at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode and well, 
Into the jaws of death, 
Into the mouth of hell, 

Rode the six hundred. 



Enterprise and Courage. 343 

Flashed all their sabres bare, 
Flashed as they turned in air, 
Sabring the gunners there, 
Charging an army, while 

All the world wondered : 
Plunged in the battery smoke, 
Right through the line they broke ; 
Cossack and Russian 
Reeled from the sabre-stroke 

Shattered and sundered ; 
Then they rode back, but not, 

Not the six hundred. 

Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon behind them 

Volleyed and thundered : 
Stormed at with shot and shell, 
While horse and hero fell, 
They that had fought so well 
Came through the jaws of death 
Back from the mouth of hell, 
All that was left of them, 

Left of six hundred. 

When can their glory fade ? 
O, the wild charge they made ! 

All the world wondered. 
Honor the charge they made ! 
Honor the Light Brigade, 

Noble six hundred ! 

% 



344 Speaker and Header. 

THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. 

Alfred Tennyson. 

The charge of the gallant three hundred, the Heavy 

Brigade ! 
Down the hill, down the hill, thousands of Russians, 
Thousands of horsemen, drew to the valley — and stay 'd ; 
For Scarlett and Scarlett's three hundred were riding by 
When the points of the Russian lances arose in the sky ; 
And he call'd " Left, wheel into line ! " and they wheel'd 

and obey'd. 
Then he look'd at the host that had halted he knew not 

why, 
And he turn'd half round, and he had his trumpeter sound 
To the charge, and he rode on ahead, as he waved his 

blade 
To the gallant three hundred whose glory will never die — 
" Follow," and up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, 
Follow'd the Heavy Brigade. 

The trumpet, the gallop, the charge, and the might of 

the fight ! 
Thousands of horsemen had gather'd there on the height, 
With a wing push'd out to the left, and a wing to the 

right, 
And who shall escape if they close ? but he dash'd up 

alone 
Thro* the great gray slope of men, 
Sway'd his sabre, and held his own 
Like an Englishman there and then ; 



Enterprise and Courage, 345 

All in a moment follow'd with force 
Three that were next in their fiery course, 
Wedged themselves in between horse and horse, 
Fought for their lives in the narrow gap they had made — 
Four amid thousands ! and up the hill, up the hill, 
Gallopt the gallant three hundred, the Heavy Brigade. 

Fell like a cannon shot, 
Burst like a thunderbolt, 
Crash'd like a hurricane, 
Broke thro' the mass from below, 
Drove thro' the midst of the foe, 
Plunged up and down, to and fro, 
Rode flashing blow upon blow, 
Brave Inniskillens and Greys 
Whirling their sabres in circles of light ! 
And some of us, all in amaze, 
Who were held for a while from the fight, 
And were only standing at gaze, 
When the dark-muffled Russian crowd 
Folded its wings from the left and the right, 
And roll'd them around like a cloud, — 
O mad for the charge and the battle were we, 
When our own good redcoats sank from sight, 
Like drops of blood in a dark-gray sea, 
And we turn'd to each other, whispering, all dismay' d, 
" Lost are the gallant three htmdred of Scarlett's 
Brigade " ! 

" Lost, one and all ! were the words 

Mutter'd in our dismay ; 

But they rode like victors and lords 



346 Speaker and Reader. 

Thro' the forest of lances and swords 

In the heart of the Russian hordes, 

They rode, or they stood at bay — 

Struck with the sword-hand and slew 

Down with the bridle-hand, drew 

The foe from the saddle and threw 

Underfoot there in the fray — 

Ranged like a storm or stood like a rock 

In the wave of a stormy day ; 

Till suddenly shock upon shock 

Stagger' d the mass from without, 

Drove it in wild disarray, 

For our men gallopt up with a cheer and a shout, 

And the foeman surged, and waver'd and reel'd 

Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, out of the field, 

And over the brow and away. 

Glory to each and to all, and the charge that they made ! 
Glory to all the three hundred, and all the Brigade ! 

THE BUGLE-SONG. 1 

Alfred Tennyson. 

The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story : 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

1 From The Princess. 



Enterprise and Courage. 347 

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill, or field, or river : 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forev"er. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 



% 



THE VICTOR OF MARENGO. 1 

Joel T. Headley. 

Napoleon was sitting in his tent. Before him lay 
the map of Italy. He took four pins, stuck them 
up, measured, moved the pins, and measured again. 
" Now," said he, " that is right. I will capture him 
there." "Who, sire?" said an officer. " Melas, the 
old fox of Austria. He will return from Genoa, pass 
through Turin, and fall back on Alexandria. I will cross 
the Po, meet him on the plains of La Servia, and conquer 

1 Based on the account of the Battle of Marengo in Napoleon and 
his Marshals. Vol. I, pages 189-197. 



348 Speaker and Reader. 

him there." And the finger of the child of destiny 
pointed to Marengo. But God thwarted Napoleon's 
schemes, and the well-planned victory of Napoleon be- 
came a terrible defeat. 

Just as the day was lost, Desaix came sweeping across 
the field at the head of his cavalry and halted near the 
eminence where stood Napoleon. In the corps was a 
drummer boy, a gamin whom Desaix had picked up in 
the streets of Paris, and who had followed the victorious 
eagles of France in the campaigns of Egypt and Austria. 

As the column halted, Napoleon shouted to him : 
" Beat a retreat." The boy did not stir. " Gamin, 
beat a retreat ! " The boy grasped his drumsticks, 
stepped forward, and said : " O sire, I don't know how. 
Desaix never taught me that. But I can beat a charge. 
Oh ! I can beat a charge that would make the dead fall 
in line. I beat that charge at the Pyramids once, and I 
beat it at Mt. Tabor, and I beat it again at the Bridge 
of Lodi, and, oh ! may I beat it here ? " 

Napoleon turned to Desaix : " We are beaten ; what 
shall we do ? " " Do ? Beat them ! There is time to 
win victory yet. Up ! gamin, the charge ! Beat the old 
charge of Mt. Tabor and Lodi ! " A moment later the 
corps, following the sword gleam of Desaix, and keeping- 
step to the furious roll of the gamin drum, swept down 
on the host of Austria. They drove the first line back 
on the second, the second back on the third, and there 
they died. Desaix fell at the first volley, but the line 
never faltered. And, as the smoke cleared away, the 
gamin was seen in front of the line, marching right on 
and still beating the furious charge. Over the dead and 



Enterprise and Courage. 349 

wounded, over the breastworks and ditches, over the 
cannon and rear guard he led the way to victory. 

To-day men point to Marengo with wonderment. 
They laud the power and foresight that so skillfully 
planned the battle ; but they forget that Napoleon failed, 
and that a gamin of Paris put to shame the child of 
destiny. 

% 



HERVE RIEL. 1 

Robert Browning. 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the 

blue, 
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee, 
With the English fleet in view. 

'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in 
full chase ; 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damfreville ; 

Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all ; 

1 From Browning' 's Poetical Works. Pages 815, 816. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



350 Speaker and Reader. 

And they signaled to the place, 
" Help the winners of a race ! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — or, 
quicker still, 

Here 's the English can and will ! " 

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt 
on board ; 
" Why, what hope or chance have ships like these 
to pass ? " laughed they : 
" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored, 
Shall the ' Formidable ' here with her twelve and eighty 
guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow 
way, 
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty 
tons, 

And with flow at full beside ? 
Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs, 
Not a ship will leave the bay!" 

Then was called a council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate : 

" Here 's the English at our heels ; would you have 

them take in tow 
All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern 

and bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 



Enterprise and Courage. 351 

Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville his speech.) 
" Not a minute more to wait ! 

Let the Captains all and each 

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the 
beach ! 
France must undergo her fate. 

" Give the word ! " But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid 
all these 
— A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate — first, second, 
third ? 
No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 

But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for 
the fleet, 
A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 

And, " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 

Herve Riel : 
" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, 

fools, or rogues ? 
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river 

disembogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying 's 

for? 



352 Speaker and Reader. 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay, 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France ? 
That were worse than fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe me 
there 's a way ! 
Only let me lead the line, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ' Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine, 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, 
Right to Solidor past Greve, 

And there lay them safe and sound ; 
And if one ship misbehave, 

— Keel so much as grate the ground, 
Why, I've nothing but my life, — here's my head!" 
cries Herve Riel. 

Xot a minute more to wait. 

" Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 
Still the north wind, by God's grace ! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's 
profound ! 



E - - 

Sri riLZi ~' r-'.j~~ hb'/ill IZjI ' »I£ 

H : - -.'-- ::-I':~ zi i £:•:£ 

" i szzj ~ ~;'z ~~ s:ezzv~ f: z»:c i £ttt. :zll: rn:t? iZ't 
_~~< ~. 

The jerzl 5>±^ ir pz?: 

AI :.:t riirr.ire: :: :zt _i;- 

: lr HtT: ?J: - — 

i - — : _: " t 



_-_.Zi Z". " .'. : J "::'.. : "t 1 ; •_.! . . Z t 

H:^ i :- :.:::r.: \- .•;:„.; z t::z . :;*:_- . i ; z:t- 

~ zz : zz :~ z_ ~ ~r. z ; t : : : : : 
T : : H:_ 

7 IZl '"";' ' Z1Z ZZJr ~~~ ^ Z ! 

ii" : : : _z :z . _ :_ t rz ntrrt j\tt:. 



! : " 

zrzzzi 



354 Speaker and Reader, 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 
I must speak out at the end, 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips ; 
You have saved the King his ships, 

You must name your own reward. 
Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! 
Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 

Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name 's not 
Damfreville." 

Then a beam of fun outbroke 
On the bearded mouth that spoke, 
As the honest heart laughed through 
Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty 's done, 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it 
but a run ? — 
Since 't is ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle 
Aurore ! " 

That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 

Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
Not a head in white and black 



Enterprise and Courage. 355 

On a single fishing-smack, 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence England 
bore the bell. 
Go to Paris : rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ! 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve 
Riel. 
So for better and for worse, 
Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle 
Aurore ! 

% 

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX. 1 

Robert Browning. 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

" Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; 

" Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; 

1 From Browning's Poetical Works. Pages 164, 165. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



356 Speaker and Reader. 

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew, and twilight dawned clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 
At Duffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime, 
So Joris broke silence with " Yet there is time ! " 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
And against him the cattle stood black every one, 
To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 
With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
And one eye's black intelligence — ever that glance 
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, " Stay spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, 
We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze 
Of her chest, saw her stretched neck and staggering 
knees, 



Enterprise and Courage. 357 

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff, 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 

And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight ! " 

" How they '11 greet us ! " and all in a moment his roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim. 

Then I cast loose my buff -coat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or 

good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
Ghent. 



358 Speaker and Reader. 

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. 1 
Robert Browning. 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon : 

A mile or so away, 
On a little mound, Napoleon 

Stood on our storming-day ; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 

Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 

Just as perhaps he mused, " My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall, 
Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at yonder wall/' — 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew 

Until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 

And held himself erect 
By just his horse's mane, a boy: 

You hardly could suspect — 
(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through) 

1 From Browning's Poetical Works. Page 251. Houghton, Mifflin 
&Co. 



Enterprise and Courage. 359 

You looked twice ere you saw his breast 
Was all but shot in two. 

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace 

We 've got you Ratisbon ! 
The Marshal 's in the market-place, 

And you '11 be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire, 
Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed ; his plans 

Soared up again like fire. 

The chief's eye flashed ; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 

When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said : 
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside, 

Smiling, the boy fell dead. 



THE CHARGE AT WATERLOO. 

Walter Scott. 

"On! on!" was still his stern exclaim; 
"Confront the battery's jaws of flame! 
Rush on the leveled gun ! 
My steel-clad cuirassiers, advance ! 



360 Speaker and Reader. 

Each Uhlan forward with his lance, 

My guard — my chosen — charge for France, 

France and Napoleon ! " 
Loud answered their acclaiming shout, 
Greeting the mandate which sent out 
Their bravest and their best to dare 
The fate their leader shunned to share. 
But He, his country's sword and shield, 
Still in the battle-front revealed, 
Where danger fiercest swept the field, 

Came like a beam of light, 
In action prompt, in sentence brief — 
"Soldiers, stand firm!" exclaimed the Chief, 

" England shall tell the fight ! " 

On came the whirlwind — like the last 
But fiercest sweep of tempest-blast — 
On came the whirlwind — steel-gleams broke 
Like lightning through the rolling smoke ; 

The war was waked anew, 
Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud, 
And from their throats, with flash and cloud, 

Their showers of iron threw. 
Beneath their fire, in full career, 
Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier, 
The lancer couched his ruthless spear, 
And hurrying as to havoc near, 

The cohorts' eagles flew. 
In one dark torrent, broad and strong, 
The advancing onset rolled along, 
Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim, 



Enterprise and Courage. 361 

That, from the shroud of smoke and flame, 
Pealed wildly the imperial name. 

But on the British heart were lost 
The terrors of the charging host ; 
For not an eye the storm that viewed 
Changed its proud glance of fortitude, 
Nor was one forward footstep staid, 
As dropped the dying and the dead. 
Fast as their ranks the thunders tear, 
Fast they renewed each serried square ; 
And on the wounded and the slain 
Closed their diminished files again. 

% 

ALEXANDER BREAKING BUCEPHALUS. 

George Lansing Taylor. 

Philonicus, the Thessalian, brought to Philip's court 

a steed 
Tall and shapely, powerful, glorious, of Larissa's noblest 

breed ; 
Flashing white from mane to fetlock, neck of thunder, 

eyes of flame 
In his brow, the jet-black ox-head, whence Bucephalus, 

his name. 

But the mighty charger's spirit none could manage, 

soothe, subdue, 
Groom Thessalian, Macedonian, right and left alike 

he threw ; 



362 Speaker and Header. 

Vain were curb-bits, vain caresses, to assuage those 

tameless fires, 
Blazing in arterial lava from a hundred Centaur sires. 



" Faugh ! avaunt, the furious monster," Philip cried in 

vexed disgust, 
" What a brute to send a monarch ! would they see 

me flung to dust ? 
Nay ! Begone with such a fury ! there 's no dragon 

market here ! " 
At the word young Alexander heaved a sigh and 

dropped a tear. 

" What a matchless steed they 're losing ! " cried the 

boy in proud distress, 
"All for lack of nerve to back him, lack of boldness 

and address ! 
Lack of soul to show the master to the dumb but 

knowing thing ! 
Lack of kingliness to match the proud four-footed 

king! " 

" What ! rash youth ! arraign thy elders ? Durst thou 

mount the horse to-day ? 
Shouldst thou fail, what kingly forfeit for thy folly 

canst thou pay ? " 
Stern spake Philip. Alexander : " Yea, I dare, give 

but the sign, 
I will ride ; or thirteen talents pay thee, and the steed 

be mine." 



Enterprise and Courage. 363 

" Done ! " cried Philip. " Mount ! " The courtiers, 

laughing, jeered the challenged boy ; 
But, ablaze with inspiration, to the steed he sprang 

with joy ; 
Boldly seized the foamsprent bridle, turned the fierce 

eye to the sun, 
Spake firm words of fearless kindness, till the fiery 

heart was won. 

To his back then lightly springing, on his neck he 

flung the rein, 
Gave him voice and spur, and sent him free and 

bounding o'er the plain. 
Like a thunderbolt in harness the great steed exultant 

flew, 
Glorying in his new-found master, with brute instinct 

swift and true. 

On gazed Philip, on gazed courtiers, on gazed Philla's 
anxious throng, 

Wondering at the princely hand that tamed a steed so 
fierce and strong, 

All unconscious of that strange instinct which could 
manliness explore, 

And a kingly lord accepting, spurned all others ever- 
more. 

On, around the royal stadium still the courser storms 
the ground, 

All his mighty thews rejoicing as his rhythmic hoof- 
beats sound ! 



364 Speaker and Reader. 

Firm, erect, the eager rider with joy of conquest 

thrills ; 
Horse and man, a new-born Centaur, one inspiring 

spirit fills. 

Down the home-stretch now careering, steed and rider 

greet the king, 
Jeers are changed to acclamation, shouts of rapture 

roll and ring. 
But with prescient tears the father hails the triumph 

won ! 
" Macedonia cramps thy genius, seek a grander realm, 

my son." 

Thus the matchless steed was mastered, born to bear 

through steel and flame 
Earth's world-conquering hero, joined with him in 

victory and fame, 
Till beside the far Hydaspes, worn with years, the 

war-horse dies, 
And a city, his memorial, lifts its towers to India's 

skies. 



% 



Enterprise and Courage. 365 

THE SIRDAR. 1 
G. W. Steevens. 

Major-General Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener 
stands several inches over six feet, straight as a lance. 
His motions are deliberate and strong. Slender but 
firmly knit, he seems built for tireless, steel-wire endur- 
ance. He has no age but the prime of life, no body 
but one to carry his mind, no face but one to keep his 
brain behind. The brain and the will are the essence 
and the w r hole of the man — a brain and a will so per- 
fect in their workings that, in the face of extremest 
difficulty, they never seem to know what struggle is. 

You cannot imagine the Sirdar otherwise than as 
seeing the right thing to do and doing it. His precision 
is so inhumanly unerring, he is more like a machine 
-than a man. 

His officers and men are wheels in the machine ; he 
feeds them enough to make them efficient, and works 
them as mercilessly as he works himself. If you sup- 
pose, therefore, that the Sirdar is unpopular, he is not. 
No general is unpopular who always beats the enemy. 
When the columns move out of camp in the evening, 
to march all night through the dark, to fight at dawn 
with an enemy they have never seen, every man goes 
forth with a tranquil minck He may personally come 
back and he may not ; but about the general result 

1 From With Kitchener to Khartum. Pages 45-52. Copyright by 
Dodd, Mead & Co. 



366 Speaker and Reader. 

there is not a doubt. He knows the Sirdar would n't ' 
fight if he were n't going to win. 

So far as Egypt is concerned, he is the man of 
destiny ; the man who has sifted experience and cor- 
rected error ; who has worked at small things and waited 
for great ; marble to sit still and fire to smite ; the 
man who has been sixteen years preparing himself to 
retake Khartum — the crowning triumph of half a 
generation's war. 



Part V. 
HUMOR AND REFLECTION. 

THE BGY TO THE SCHOOLMASTER. 
Edward J. Wheeler. 

You 've quizzed me often and puzzled me long, 

You 've asked me to cipher and spell, 
You Ve called me a dunce if I answered wrong, 

Or a dolt if I failed to tell 
Just when to say lie and when to say lay, 

Or what nine-sevenths may make, 
Or the longitude of Kamchatka Bay, 

Or the I-forget-what 's-its-name lake. 
So I think it 's about my turn, I do, 

To ask a question or so of you. 

The schoolmaster grim he opened his eyes, 
But said, not a word for sheer surprise. 

Can you tell where the nest of the oriole swings, 

Or the color its egg may be ? 
Do you know the time when the squirrel brings 

Its young from their nest in the tree ? 
Can you tell when the chestnuts are ready to drop, 

Or where the best hazelnuts grow ? 
367 



368 Speaker and Reader. 

Can you climb a high tree to the very tiptop, 

Then gaze without trembling below ? 
Can you swim and dive, can you jump and run, 

Or do anything else we boys call fun ? 

The master's voice trembled as he replied, 

"You are right, my lad ; I 'm the dunce," he sighed. 



% 



HOW MR. RABBIT LOST HIS FINE BUSHY 
TAIL. 1 

Joel Chandler Harris. 

"One day Brer Rabbit wuz gwine down de road 
shakin' his long, bushy tail, w'en who should he strike 
up wid but ole Brer Fox gwine amblin' long wid a big 
string er fish ! W'en dey pass de time er day wid 
wunner nudder, Brer Rabbit, he open up de confab, he 
did, en he ax Brer Fox whar he git dat nice string er 
fish, en Brer Fox, he up 'n' 'spon' dat he kotch um, en 
Brer Rabbit, he say whar' bouts, en Brer Fox, he say 
down at de baptizin' creek, en Brer Rabbit he ax how, 
kaze in dem days dey wuz monstus fon' er* minners, en 
Brer Fox, he sot down on a log, he did, en he up 'n' tell 
Brer Rabbit dat all he gotter do fer ter git er big mess 
er minners is ter go ter de creek atter sundown en 
drap his tail in de water en set dar twel daylight, en 

1 From Uncle Remus, his Songs and Sayings. Pages no, in. Copy- 
right, 1880, 1895, ^ D. Appleton & Co., and quoted by special permission 
of the publishers. 



Humor > Sentiment, and Re/lection. 369 

den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w'at he 
don't want, he kin fling back. Right dar 's whar Brer 
Rabbit drap his watermillion, kaze he tuck 'n' sot out dat 
night en went a-fishin'. De wedder wuz sorter cole, en 
Brer Rabbit, he got 'im a bottle er dram en put out fer 
de creek, en w'en he git dar he pick out a good place, 
en he sorter sqot down, he did, en let his tail hang in 
de water. He sot dar, en he sot dar, en he drunk his 
dram, en he think he gwineter freeze, but bimeby day 
come, en dar he wuz. He make a pull, en he feel like 
he comin' in two, en he fetch nudder jerk, en lo en 
beholes ! whar wuz his tail ? 

" It come off, and dat w'at make all deze yer bob- 
tail rabbits w'at you see hoppin' en skaddlin' thoo de 
woods." 

LAFFING. 1 
Henry W. Shaw. 

Laffing iz the sensation ov pheeling good all over, 
and showing it principally in one spot. It iz the next 
best thing tew the Ten Commandments. It iz the fire- 
works of the soul. Laffing iz just az natral tew cum 
tew the surface az a rat iz tew cum out ov hiz hole 
when he wants tew. 

Yu kant keep it back by swallowing, enny more than 
yu kan the heekups. If a man kant laff, there iz 

1 From Josh Billings, his Works. Page 75. Copyright by G. W. 
Dillingham Company. 



370 Speaker and Reader. 

sum mistake made in putting him together, and if he 
wont laff he wants az mutch keeping away from az 
a bear trap when it iz sot. 

I have seen people who laffed too mutch for their 
own good or for ennyboddy else's ; they laft like a 
• barrell ov nu sider with the tap pulled out, a perfekt 
stream. This iz a grate waste ov natral juice. 

I have seen other people who did n't laff enuff tew 
give themselves vent ; they waz like a barrell ov nu 
sider, too, that waz bunged up tite, apt tew start a hoop 
and leak all away on the sly. Thare ain't neither ov 
these 2 ways right, and they never ought tew be 
a-pattented. 

Genuine laffing iz the vent ov the soul, the nostrils 
ov the heart, and iz just az necessary for health and 
happiness az spring water iz for a trout. 

There iz one kind ov a laff that i always did rekom- 
mend ; it looks out ov the eye fust with a merry twinkle, 
then it kreeps down on its hands and kneze and plays 
around the mouth like a pretty moth around the blaze 
ov a kandle, then it steals over into the dimples ov the 
cheeks and rides around into thoze little whirlpools for 
a while, then it lites up the whole face like the mello 
bloom on a damask roze, then it swims oph on the air 
with a peal az klear and az happy az a dinner bell, then 
it goes bak again on golden tiptoze, like an angel out 
for an airing, and laze down on its little bed ov violets in 
the heart where it cum from. 

Thare iz another laff that nobody kan withstand ; it 
iz just az honest and noizy az a distrikt skool let out tew 
play ; it shakes a man up from hiz toze tew hiz temples ; 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 



o/ 



it dubbles and twists him like a whiskee phit ; it lifts him 
oph from his cheer, like feathers, and lets him bak agin 
like melted led; it goes all thru him like a pickpocket, and 
finally leaves him az weak and az krazy az tho' he had 
bin soaking all day in a Rushing bath, and forgot to be 
took out. 

In konclusion i say laff every good chance yu kan git, 
but don't laff unless yu feal like it. When yu do laff open 
your mouth wide enuff for the noise tew git out without 
squealing, thro yure hed bak az tho yu waz going to be 
shaved, hold on tew yure false hair with both hands, and 
then laff till yure soul gets thoroly rested. 

% 

ARISTOKRATS. 1 
Henry W. Shaw. 

Xatur' furnishes all the noblemen we hav\ Pedigree 
haz no more to do in making a man aktually grater than 
he iz, than a pekok's feather in his hat haz in making 
him aktually taller. 

Thiz iz a hard phakt for some tew learn. 

Thiz mundane earth iz thik with folks who think they 
are grate, bekauze their ansesstor waz luckey in the sope 
or tobacco trade ; and altho' the sope haz run out some 
time since, they try tew phool themselves and other 
folks with the suds. 

Sopesuds iz a prekarious bubble. Thare ain't nothing 
so thin on the ribs az a sopesuds aristokrat. 

1 From Josh Billings, his Works. G. W. Dillingham Company. 



372 Speaker and Reader. 

Titles ain't ov enny more real use or necessity than 
dog collars are. I hav' seen dog collars that kost 3 
dollars on dogs that want worth, in enny market, over 
87% cents. This iz a grate waste ov collar and a 
grate damage tew the dog. 

Raizing aristokrats iz a dredful poor bizzness ; yu 
don't never git your seed back. One domocrat is worth 
more tew the world than 60 thousand manufaktured 
aristokrats. 

An Amerikan aristokrat is the most ridiculus thing in 
market. They are generally ashamed ov their ancestors ; 
and, if they hav' enny, and live long enuff, they gen- 
erally hav' cauze tew be ashamed ov their posterity. 

I kno' ov sev'ral familys in Amerika who are trying 
tew liv' on their aristokrasy. The money and brains 
giv' out sum time ago. It iz hard skratching for them. 

Yu kan warm up kold potatoze and liv' on them, but 
yu kant warm up aristokratik pride and git even a 
smell. 

THE MUSKEETER. 1 

Henry W. Shaw. 

Muskeeters are a game bug, but they won't bite at a 
hook. Thare iz millyuns ov them kaught every year. 
This makes the market for them unstiddy, the supply 
always exceeding the demand. The muskeeter iz born 

1 From Josh Billings'' Farmers' Allminax, December, 1877. G. W. 
Dillingham Company. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 373 

on the sly, and cums to maturity quicker than enny 
other ov the domestik animiles. A muskeeter at 3 hours 
old iz just az reddy and anxious to go into bizzness for 
himself az ever he iz, and bites the fust time az sharp 
and natral az red pepper duz. The muskeeter has a 
good ear for musik and sings without notes. The song 
ov the muskeeter iz monotonous to sum folks, but in me 
it stirs up the memories ov other days. I hav' lade 
awake all nite long, menny a time, and listened to the 
sweet anthems ov the muskeeter. I am satisfied that 
thare want nothing made in vain, but i kant help think- 
ing how mighty kluss the muskeeter kum to it. The 
muskeeter has inhabited this world since its kreashun, 
and will probably hang around here until bizzness closes. 
Whare the muskeeter goes to in the winter is a standing 
konundrum, which all the naturalists hav' giv' up, but we 
kno' he don't go far, for he is on hand early each year 
with his probe fresh ground and polished. Muskeeters 
must be one ov the luxurys ov life, they certainly ain't 
one ov the necessarys, not if we kno' ourselfs. 

"I WAS WITH GRANT." 1 

Bret Harte. 

"I was with Grant," the stranger said; 

Said the farmer, " Say no more, 
But rest thee here at my cottage porch, 

For thy feet are weary and sore." 

1 From Poems by Bret Harte. Pages 125-127. Fields, Osgood & Co. 



374 Speaker and Header. 

"I was with Grant," the stranger said; 

Said the farmer, " Nay, no more ; 
I prithee sit at my frugal board 

And eat of my humble store. 

" How fares my boy, my soldier boy, 
Of the old Ninth Army Corps ? 

I warrant he bore him gallantly 

In the smoke and the battle's roar!" 

" I know him not," said the aged man, 

"And, as I remarked before, 
I was with Grant — ." "Nay, nay, I know," 

Said the farmer. " Say no more ; 

" He fell in battle, — - I see, alas ! 

Thou 'dst smooth these tidings o'er, — 
Nay, speak the truth, whatever it be, 

Though it rend my bosom's core. 

"How fell he, — with face to the foe, 

Upholding the flag he bore ? 
O, say not that my boy disgraced 

The uniform that he wore!" 

" I cannot tell," said the aged man, 
"And should have remarked before, 

That I was with Grant, — in Illinois, — 
Some three years before the war." 

Then the farmer spake him never a word, 
But beat with his fist full sore 

That aged man who had worked for Grant 
Some three years before the war. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 375 

MR. DOOLEY OX FOOTBALL. 1 

F. P. Dunne. 

I seen th' D organ la-ad comin' up th' sthreet yester- 
dah in his futball clothes, — a pair iv matthresses on his 
legs, a pillow behind, a mask over his nose, an' a bushel 
measure iv hair on his head. He was followed by three 
men with bottles, Dr. Ryan, an' th' Dorgan fam'ly. I 
jined thim. They was a big crowd on th' peerary, — 
a bigger crowd than ye cud get to go fr to see a 
prize fight. Both sides had their frinds that give th' 
colledge cries. Says wan crowd : " Take an ax, an ax, 
an ax to thim. Hooroo, hooroo, hellabaloo ! Chris- 
tyan Broothers ! " An' th' other says, "Hit thim, saw 
thim, gnaw thim, chaw thim ! Saint Alo-ysius!" Well, 
afther a while they got down to wur-ruk. " Sivin, 
eighteen, two, four," says a la-ad. Wan la-ad hauled 
off, an' give a la-ad acrost fr'm him a punch in th' 
stomach. His frind acrost the way caught him in 
th' ear. Th' cinter rush iv th' Saint Aloysiuses took 
a runnin' jump at th' left lung iv wan iv th' Christyan 
Brothers, an' wint to th' grass with him. Four Chris- 
tyan Brothers leaped most crooly at four Saint Aloy- 
siuses, an' rolled thim. Th' cap'n iv th' Saint Aloysiuses 
he took th' cap'n iv th' Christyan Brothers be th' 
right leg, an' he pounded th 1 pile with him as I Ve 
seen a section hand tamp th' track. All this time young 
Dorgan was standin' back, takin' no hand in th' affray. 

1 From Mr. Dooley in Peace and i?i War. Pages 153-156. Copyright 
by Small, Maynard & Co. 



376 Speaker and Reader. 

All iv a suddent he give a cry iv rage, an' jumped feel 
foremost into th' pile. " Down ! " says th' impire. 
" Faith, they are all iv that ! " says I. " Will iver they 
get up?'' "They will," says ol' man Dorgan. "Ye 
can't stop thim," says he. 

It took some time f'r to pry thim off. Near ivry 
man of the Saint Aloysiuses was tied in a knot around 
wan iv th' Christyan Brothers. On'y wan iv thim re- 
mained on th' field. He was lyin' face down, with his 
nose in th' mud. "He's kilt," says I. "I think he 
is," says Dorgan with a merry smile. " 'T was my 
boy Jimmy done it, too," says he. " He '11 be arrested 
f'r murdher," says I. "He will not," says he. Well, 
they carried th' corpse to th' side, an' took th' ball out 
iv his stomach with a monkey wrinch, an' th' game was 
rayshumed. " Sivin, sixteen, eight, eleven," says Saint 
Aloysius ; an' young Dorgan started to run down th' 
field. They was another young la-ad r-runnin' in 
fr-front iv Dorgan ; an' as fast as wan iv th' Chris- 
tyan Brothers come up an' got in th' way, this here 
young Saint Aloysius grabbed him be th' hair iv 
th' head an' th' sole iv th' fut, an' thrun him over 
his shoulder. "What's that la-ad doin' ? " says I. 
" Interfering " says he. "I shud think he was," says 
I, " an' most impudent," I says. An' I come away. 
'T is a noble sport. 



% 



Humor, Senti??ient y and Reflection. 377 

THE PRIEST AND THE MULBERRY TREE. 

Thomas L. Peacock. 

Did you hear of the curate who mounted his mare, 

And merrily trotted along to the fair ? 

Of creature more tractable none ever heard. 

In the height of her speed she would stop at a word ; 

But again, with a word, when the curate said Hey, 

She put forth her mettle and gallop'd away. 

As near to the gates of the city he rode, 

While the sun of September all brilliantly glow'd, 

The good priest discover' d, with eyes of desire, 

A mulberry tree in a hedge of wild brier ; 

On boughs long and lofty, in many a green shoot, 

Hung, large, black, and glossy, the beautiful fruit. 

The curate was hungry and thirsty to boot ; 

He shrunk from the thorns, though he long'd for the 

fruit ; 
With a word he arrested his courser's keen speed, 
And he stood up erect on the back of his steed ; 
On the saddle he stood while the creature stood still, 
And he gather'd the fruit till he took his good fill. 

"Sure, never," he thought, "was a creature so rare, 

So docile, so true, as my excellent mare ; 

Lo, here now I stand," and he gazed all around, 

" As safe and as steady as if on the ground ; 

Yet how had it been, if some traveler this way 

Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to cry Hey? " 



378 Speaker and Reader. 

He stood with his head in the mulberry tree, 
And he spoke out aloud in his fond reverie ; 
At the sound of the word the good mare made a push, 
And down went the priest in the wild brier bush. 
He remember' d too late, on his thorny green bed, 
Much that well may be thought cannot wisely be said. 

% 

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE CAT; 1 

Drowned in a Tub of Gold-Fishes. 

Thomas Gray. 

'T was on a lofty vase's side, 
Where China's gayest art had dy'd 

The azure flowers that blow, 
Demurest of the tabby kind, 
The pensive Selina reclin'd, 

Gazed on the lake below. 

Her conscious tail her joy declar'd ; 
The fair round face, the snowy beard, 

The velvet of her paws, 
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, 

She saw ; and purr'd applause. 

Still had she gaz'd ; but 'midst the tide 
Two angel forms were seen to glide, 
The genii of the stream : 

1 From Works of Thomas Gray. Vol. I, pages 11-13. Macmillan 
&Co. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 379 

Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue, 
Thro' richest purple to the view, 
Betray 'd a golden gleam. 

The hapless nymph with wonder saw : 
A whisker first and then a claw, 

With many an ardent wish, 
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize. 
What female heart can gold despise ? 

What cat 's averse to fish ? 

Presumptuous maid ! with looks intent 
Again she stretch'd, again she bent, 

Nor knew the gulf between. 
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smil'd) 
Theslipp'ry verge her feet beguil'd, 

She tumbled headlong in. 

Eight times emerging from the flood 
She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry god 

Some speedy aid to send. 
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd : 
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard. 

A fav'rite has no friend ! 

From hence, ye beauties, undeceiv'd, 
Know, one false step is ne'er retriev'd, 

And be with caution bold. 
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes 
And heedless hearts is lawful prize, 

Nor all that glisters, gold. 

% 



380 Speaker and Reader. 

RORY O'MORE. 

Samuel Lover. 

Young Rory O'More courted Kathleen bawn ; 

He was bold as the hawk, and she soft as the dawn ; 

He wished in his heart pretty Kathleen to please, 

And he thought the best way to do that was to tease. 

"Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry, 

Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye — 

" With your tricks, I don't know, in throth, what I 'm 

about ; 
Faith, you Ve teased till I 've put on my cloak inside out." 
"Och ! jewel," says Rory, "that same is the way 
You Ve thrated my heart for this many a day ; 
And 't is plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure ? 
For 'tis all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 

"Indeed, then," says Kathleen, "don't think of the like, 
For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike ; 
The ground that I walk on he loves, I '11 be bound." 
" Faith ! " says Rory, " I 'd rather love you than the 
ground." 

" Now, Rory, I '11 cry if you don't let me go ; 
Sure, I dream ev'ry night that I 'm hating you so ! " 
"Och ! " says Rory, "that same I 'm delighted to hear, 
For dhrames always go by conthrairies, my dear. 
Och ! jewel, keep dhraming that same till you die, 
And bright morning will give dirty night the black lie ! 
And 't is plazed that I am, and why not, to be sure ? 
Since 't is all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 



Humor \ Sentiment \ and Reflection. 381 

" Arrah, Kathleen, my darlint, you Ve teased me enough ; 
Sure, I 've thrashed for your sake Dinny Grimes and 

Jim Duff; 
And I 've made myself, drinking your health, quite a 

baste, 
So I think, after that, I may talk to the priest." 
Then Rory, the rogue, stole his arm round her neck, 
So soft and so white, without freckle" or speck ; 
And he looked in her eyes, that were beaming with light, 
And he kissed her sweet lips — don't you think he was 

right ? 

"Now, Rory, leave off, sir — you '11 hug me no more — 
That 's eight times to-day you have kissed me before." 
"Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure, 
For there 's luck in odd numbers," says Rory O'More. 

% 

THE YARN OF THE " NANCY BELL." 

William S. Gilbert. 

'T was on the shores that round our coast 

From Deal to Ramsgate span, 
That I found alone, on a piece of stone, 

An elderly naval man. 

His hair was weedy, his beard was long, 

And weedy and long was he ; 
And I heard this wight on the shore recite, 

In a singular minor key : — 



382 Speaker and Reader. 

" Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold, 

And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 

And the crew of the captain's gig." 

And he shook his fists and he tore his hair, 

Till I really felt afraid, 
For I could n't help thinking the man had been drinking, 

And so I simply said : — 

" O elderly man, it 's little I know 

Of the duties of men of the sea, 
And I '11 eat my hand if I understand 

How ever you can be 

" At once a cook and a captain bold, 

And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 

And the crew of the captain's gig ! " 

Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which 

Is a trick all seamen larn, 
And having got rid of a thumping quid, 

He spun this painful yarn: — 

"'Twas in the good ship Nancy Bell 

That we sail'd to the Indian sea, 
And there on a reef we came to grief, 

Which has often occurr'd to me. 

" And pretty nigh all o' the crew was drown'd 

(There was seventy-seven o' soul ) ; 
And only ten of the Nancy's men 

Said ' Here ! ' to the muster-roll. 



Humor, Sentiment , and Reflection. 383 

" There was me, and the cook, and the captain bold, 

And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And the bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 

And the crew of the captain's gig. 

" For a month we 'd neither wittles nor drink, 

Till a-hungry we did feel, 
So we draw'd a lot, and, according shot 

The captain for our meal. 

"The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate, 

And a delicate dish he made ; 
Then our appetite with the midshipmite 

We seven survivors stay'd. 

" And then we murder'd the bo'sun tight, 

And he much resembled pig ; 
Then we wittled free, did the cook and me, 

On the crew of the captain's gig. 

" Then only the cook and me was left, 

And the delicate question, < Which 
Of us two goes to the kettle ? ' arose, 

And we argued it out as sich. 

" For I loved that cook as a brother, I did ; 

And the cook he worship 'd me ; 
But we 'd both be blow'd if we 'd either be stow'd 

In the other chap's hold, you see. 

"'I'll be eat if you dines off me,' says Tom. 

'Yes, that,' says I, < you '11 be. 
I 'm boil'd if I die, my friend,' quoth I ; 

And 'Exactly so,' quoth he. 



384 Speaker and Reader. 

" Says he : i Dear James, to murder me 

Were a foolish thing to do, 
For don't you see that you can't cook me y 

While I can — and will — cook you ? ' 

"So he boils the water, and takes the salt 

And the pepper in portions true 
(Which he never forgot), and some chopp'd shallot, 

And some sage and parsley too. 

" ' Come here/ says he with a proper pride, 

Which his smiling features tell ; 
< T will soothing be if I let you see 

How extremely nice you '11 smell.' 

"And he stirr'd it round and round and round, 

And he sniff 'd at the foaming froth ; 
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals 

In the scum of the boiling broth. 

"And I eat that cook in a week or less, 

And as I eating be 
The last of his chops, why, I almost drops, 

For a wessel in sight I see. 



"And I never larf, and I never smile, 
And I never lark nor play ; 

But I sit and croak, and a single joke 
I have — which is to say : 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 385 

"'Oh, I am a cook, and a captain bold, 
And the mate of the Nancy brig, 

And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig ! ' " 



% 



ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Good people all, of every sort, 

Give ear unto my song ; 
And if you find it wond rous short 

It cannot hold you long. 

In Islington there was a man, 
Of whorcL the world might say 

That still a godly race he ran, 
Whene'er he went to pray. 

A kind and gentle heart he had, 

To comfort friends and foes ; 
The naked every day he clad, 

When he put on his clothes. 

And in that town a dog was found, 

As many dogs there be, 
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 

And curs of low degree. 



386 Speaker and Reader. 

This dog and man at first were friends, 

But when a pique began, 
The dog, to gain some private ends, 

Went mad, and bit the man. 

Around from all the neighboring streets 

The wondering neighbors ran, 
And swore the dog had lost his wits, 

To bite so good a man. 

The wound it seemed both sore and sad 

To every Christian eye ; 
And while they swore the dog was mad, 

They swore the man would die. 

But soon a wonder came to light, 
That showed the rogues they lied ; 

The man recovered of the bite, 
The dog it was that died. 

% 

THE COLUBRIAD. 1 

William Cowper. 

Close by the threshold of a door nailed fast 

Three kittens sat ; each kitten looked aghast. 

I, passing swift and inattentive by, 

At the three kittens cast a careless eye ; 

Not much concerned to know what they did there ; 

1 From Cowper's Poetical Works. Page 346. Macmillan & Co. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection, 387 

Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care. 

But presently a loud and furious hiss 

Caused me to stop, and to exclaim, "What's this?" 

When lo ! upon the threshold met my view, 

With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue, 

A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue. 

Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws, 

Darting it full against a kitten's nose ; 

Who having never seen, in field or house, 

The like, sat still and silent as a mouse ; 

Only projecting, with attention due, 

Her whiskered face, she asked him, "Who are you?" 

On to the hall went I, with pace not slow, 

But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe : 

With which well armed I hastened to the spot 

To find the viper, but I found him not. 

And turning up the leaves and shrubs around, 

Found only that he was not to be found. 

But still the kittens, sitting as before, 

Sat watching close the bottom of the door. 

"I hope," said I, "the villain I would kill 

Has slipped between the door and the door-sill ; 

And if I make despatch, and follow hard, 

No doubt but I shall find him in the yard " : 

For long ere now it should have been rehearsed, 

'T was in the garden that I found him first. 

E'en there I found him, there the full-grown cat 

His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat ; 

As curious as the kittens erst had been 

To learn what this phenomenon might mean. 

Filled with heroic ardor at the sight, 



388 Speaker and Reader. 

And fearing every moment he would bite, 

And rob our household of our only cat 

That was of age to combat with a rat, 

With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door, 

And taught him never to come there no more. 



% 



SPEECH OF MRS. MALAPROP: 1 

On a Woman's Education. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan. 

Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no means 
wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning : 
I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman ; 
for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, 
or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or para- 
doxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning ; 
neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of 
your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments. 
But, Sir Anthony, I would send her, at nine years 
old, to a boarding school, in order to learn a little inge- 
nuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a super- 
cilious knowledge in accounts ; and as she grew up, I 
would have her instructed in geometry, that she might 
know something of the contagious countries ; but 
above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of ortho- 
doxy, that she might not mis-spell, and mis-pronounce 

1 From The Rivals. The Plays of Sheridan. Page 89. George 
Routledge & Sons. 



Humor \ Sentiment, and Reflection. 389 

words so shamefully as girls usually do ; and likewise 
that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she 
is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a 
woman know ; and I don't think there is a supersti- 
tious article in it. 

% 



MUSIC-POUNDING. 1 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was 
a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces 
round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. 
She gave the music stool a twirl or two and fluffed down 
on to it like a whirl of soapsuds in a hand basin. Then 
she pushed up her cuffs as though she was going to 
fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her 
wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and 
spread out her fingers till they looked as though they 
would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growl- 
ing end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands 
of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a 
couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black and 
white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its 
tail had been trod on. Dead stop, — so still you could 
hear your hair growing. Then another jump and 
another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had 
trod on both of 'em at once, and then a grand clatter 

1 From The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Copyright by Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



390 Speaker and Reader. 

and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back 
and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede 
of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. 
I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle 
sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood 
and ivory anvils — don't talk to me, I know the differ- 
ence between a bullfrog and a wood thrush. 

THREE FISHERS. 

Charles Kingsley. 

Three fishers went sailing out into the west — 
Out into the west as the sun went down ; 

Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, 
And the children stood watching them out of the 
town ; 

For men must work, and women must weep ; 

And there 's little to earn, and many to keep, 
Though the harbor bar be moaning. 

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down ; 
They looked at the squall, and they looked at the 
shower, 
And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and 
brown. 
For men must work, and women must weep, 
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, 
And the harbor bar be moaning. 



Humor , Sentiment, and Rejection. 391 

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands 
In the morning gleam as the tide went down, 

And the women are watching and wringing their hands 
For those who will never come home to the town ; 

For men must work, and women must weep, 

And the sooner it 's over, the sooner to sleep, 
And good-bye to the bar and its moaning. 

% 

THE KING'S RING. 1 

Theodore Tilton. 

Once in Persia reigned a king, 
Who upon his signet ring 
Graved a maxim true and wise, 
Which, if held before his eyes, 
Gave him counsel at a glance, 
Fit for every change or chance, 
Solemn words, and these are they : 
" Even this shall pass away ! " 

Trains of camels through the sand 
Brought him gems from Samarcand ; 
Fleets of galleys through the seas 
Brought him pearls to rival these. 
But he counted little gain 
Treasures of the mine or main. 
" What is wealth?" the king would say; 
"'Even this shall pass away/" 

1 From The Sexton } s Tale, and Other Poems. Pages 45-48. 
Sheldon & Co. 



392 Speaker and Header. 

In the revels of his court, 
At the zenith of the sport, 
When the palms of all his guests 
Burned with clapping at his jests, 
He, amid his figs and wine, 
Cried, "O loving friends of mine! 
Pleasure comes, but not to stay : 
'Even this shall pass away.'" 

Lady fairest ever seen 

Was the bride he crowned his queen. 

Pillowed on the marriage-bed, 

Whispering to his soul, he said, 

" Though a bridegroom never pressed 

Dearer bosom to his breast, 

Mortal flesh must come to clay ; 

i Even this shall pass away/ " 

Fighting on a furious field, 
Once a javelin pierced his shield. 
Soldiers with a loud lament 
Bore him bleeding to his tent. 
Groaning from his tortured side, 
" Pain is hard to bear," he cried, 
" But with patience day by day, 
'Even this shall pass away.' ' 

Towering in the public square, 
Twenty cubits in the air, 
Rose his statue carved in stone. 
Then the king, disguised, unknown, 



Humor, Sentiment, an J Reflection. :i: 

Gazing at his sculptured name, 

:ed himself, "And what is fame? 
Fame is but a slow decay ; 
1 Even this shall pass away 

Struck with palsy, sere and old, 
Waiting at the Gates of Gold, 
Spake he with his dying breath : 
*• Life is done, but what is death?" 
Then, in answer to the king, 
Fell a sunbeam on his ring, 
Showing by a heavenly ray : 
E en this shall pass away.'' 



T» 



WHERE LIES THE LANE : 

A7.THV7. Hv-h Ci :-/:-:-:. 

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know; 
And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 

On sunny noons upon the deck's smooth fa:e 
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace 
Or o'er the stern reclining, watch below 
The foaming wake far widening as we go. 



394 Speaker and Reader. 

On stormy nights, when wild northwesters rave, 
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave ! 
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast 
Exults to hear, and scorns to wish it past. 

Where lies the land to which the ship would go ? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know ; 
And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say. 

% 

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH : A DREAM OF 
PONCE DE LEON. 

Hezekiah Butterworth. 

A story of Ponce de Leon, 

A voyager, withered and old, 
Who came to the sunny Antilles, 

In quest of a country of gold. 
He was wafted past islands of spices, 

As bright as the emerald seas, 
Where all the forests seem singing, 

So thick were the birds on the trees ; 
The sea was as clear as the azure, 

And so deep and so pure was the sky 
That the jasper-walled city seemed shining 

Just out of the reach of the eye. 
By day his light canvas he shifted, 

And rounded strange harbors and bars ; 
By night, on the full tides he drifted, 

'Neath the low-hanging lamps of the stars. 



Humor , Senli??ient y and Reflection. 395 

Near the glimmering gates of the sunset, 

In the twilight empurpled and dim, 
The sailors uplifted their voices, 

And sang to the Virgin a hymn. 
" Thank the Lord ! " said De Leon, the sailor, 

At the close of the rounded refrain ; 
" Thank the Lord, the Almighty, who blesses 

The ocean-swept banner of Spain ! 
The shadowy world is behind us, 

The shining Cipango, before ; 
Each morning the sun rises brighter 

On ocean, and island, and shore. 
And still shall our spirits grow lighter, 

As prospects more glowing enfold ; 
Then on, merry men ! to Cipango, 

To the west, and the regions of gold!" 

There came to De Leon, the sailor, 

Some Indian sages, who told 
Of a region so bright that the waters 

Were sprinkled with islands of gold. 
And they added : " The leafy Bimini, 

A fair land of grottoes and bowers, 
Is there ; and a wonderful fountain 

Upsprings from its gardens of flowers. 
That fountain gives life to the dying, 

And youth to the aged restores ; 
They flourish in beauty eternal 

Who set but their foot on its shores ! " 
Then answered De Leon, the sailor : 

" I am withered, and wrinkled, and. old ; 



396 Speaker and Reader. 

I would rather discover that fountain, 

Than a country of diamonds and gold ! " 



But wandered De Leon, the sailor, 

In search of that fountain in vain ; 
No waters were there to restore him 

To freshness and beauty again ; 
And his anchor he lifted, and murmured, 

As the tears gathered fast in his eye, 
" I must leave this fair land of the flowers, 

Go back o'er the ocean, and die." 
Then back by the dreary Tortugas, 

And back by the shady Azores, 
He was borne on the storm-smitten waters 

To the calm of his own native shores. 
And that he grew older and older, 

His footsteps enfeebled gave proof, 
Still he thirsted in dreams for the fountain, 

The beautiful fountain of youth. 

One day the old sailor lay dying 

On the shores of a tropical isle, 
And his heart was enkindled with rapture, 

And his face lighted up with a smile. 
He thought of the sunny Antilles, 

He thought of the shady Azores, 
He thought of the dreamy Bahamas, 

He thought of fair Florida's shores. 
And when in his mind he passed over 

His wonderful travels of old, 



Humor , Sentiment, and Reflection. 397 

He thought of the heavenly country, 

Of the city of jasper and gold. 
" Thank the Lord ! " said De Leon, the sailor, 

" Thank the Lord for the light of the truth, 
I now am approaching the fountain, 

The beautiful fountain of youth." 

The cabin was silent : at twilight 

They heard the birds singing a psalm, 

And the wind of the ocean low sighing 
Through groves of the orange and palm. 

The sailor still lay on his pallet, 

Neath the low-hanging vines of the roof; 

His soul had gone forth to discover 
The beautiful fountain of youth. 



VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. 
Lord Byron. 

The king was on his throne, 

The satraps thronged the hall ; 
A thousand bright lamps shone 

O'er that high festival. 
A thousand cups of gold, 

In Judah deemed divine, — 
Jehovah's vessels hold 

The godless heathen's wine. 



398 Speaker and Reader. 

In that same hour and hall, 

The figures of a hand 
Came forth against the wall, 

And wrote as if on sand : 
The fingers of a man ; — 

A solitary hand 
Along the letters ran, 

And traced them like a wand. 

The monarch saw, and shook, 

And bade no more rejoice ; 
All bloodless waxed his look, 

And tremulous his voice. 
" Let the men of lore appear, 

The wisest of the earth, 
And expound the words of fear, 

Which mar our royal mirth." 

Chaldea's seers are good, 

But here they have no skill ; 
And the unknown letters stood 

Untold and awful still. 
And Babel's men of age 

Are wise and deep in lore, 
But now they were not sage ; 

They saw, but knew no more. 

A captive in the land, 
A stranger and a youth, 

He heard the king's command, 
He saw that writing's truth. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 399 

The lamps around were bright, 

The prophecy in view ; 
He read it on that night, — 

The morrow proved it true. 

" Belshazzar's grave is made, 

His kingdom passed away, 
He, in the balance weighed, 

Is light and worthless clay. 
The shroud his robe of state, 

His canopy the stone ; 
The Mede is at his gate, 

The Persian on his throne ! " 

% 

THE WHITE SHIP. 1 

(Henry I of England, Nov. 25, 1120.) 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

King Henry held it as life's whole gain 
That after his death his son should reign. 

King Henry of England's realm was he, 
And Henry, Duke of Normandy. 

Of ruthless strokes full many an one 

He had struck to crown himself and his son ; 

1 From Ballads and Sonnets. Pages 53-69. Roberts Brothers. 



400 Speaker and Reader. 

But all the chiefs of the English land 
Had knelt and kissed the prince's hand. 

And next with his son he sailed to France 
To claim the Norman allegiance : 

And every baron in Normandy 
Had taken the oath of fealty. 

'T was sworn and sealed and the day had come 
When the king and the prince might journey home : 

Stout Fitz- Stephen came to the king, 
A pilot famous in seafaring ; 

And he held to the king, in all men's sight, 
A mark of gold for his tribute's right. 

" Liege lord ! my father guided the ship 
From whose boat your father's foot did slip 
When he caught the English soil in his grip, 

" And cried, ' By this clasp I claim command, 
O'er every rood of English land ! ' 

" He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now 
In that ship with the archer carved at her prow : 

" And thither I '11 bear, an' it be my due, 
Your father's son and his grandson, too. 

"The famed White Ship is mine in the bay; 
From Harfleur's harbor she sails to-day, 



Humor, Sentiment \ and Reflection. 401 

"With masts fair pennoned as Norman spears 
And with fifty well-tried mariners." 

Quoth the king : " My ships are chosen each one, 
But I '11 not say nay to Stephen's son. 

"My son and daughter and fellowship 
Shall cross the water in the White Ship." 

The king set sail with the eve's south wind, 
And soon he left that coast behind. 

The prince and all his, a princely show, 
Remained in the good White Ship to go. 

With noble knights and with ladies fair, 
With courtiers and sailors gathered there, 
Three hundred living souls we were : 

The prince was a lawless, shameless youth. 

And now he cried: "Bring wine from below; 
Let the sailors revel ere yet they row : 

"Our speed shall o'ertake my father's flight, 
Though we sail from the harbor at midnight." 

The rowers made good cheer without check ; 

The lords and ladies obeyed his beck ; 

The night was light and they danced on the deck. 

But at midnight's stroke they cleared the bay, 
And the White Ship furrowed the water-way. 



402 Speaker and Reader. 

The sails were set, and the oars kept tune 

To the double flight of the ship and the moon : 

Swifter and swifter the White Ship sped, 

Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead : 

And the prince cried, " Friends, 't is the hour to sing ! 
Is a songbird's course so swift on the wing ? " 

And under the winter stars' still throng, 

From brown throats, white throats, merry and strong, 

The knights and the ladies raised a song. 

A song, — nay, a shriek that rent the sky, 
That leaped o'er the deep! — the grievous cry 
Of three hundred living that now must die. 

An instant shriek that sprang to the shock 
As the ship's keel felt the sunken rock. 

A moment the pilot's senses spin, — 

The next he snatched the prince 'mid the din, 

Cut the boat loose, and the youth leaped in. 

A few friends leaped with him, standing near. 
" Row ! the sea 's smooth and the night is clear ! " 

Twas then o'er the splitting bulwarks' brim 
The prince's sister screamed to him. 

He knew her face and he heard her cry, 
And he said, *' Put back ! she must not die ! " 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 403 

And back with the current's force they reel, 
Like a leaf that 's drawn to a water-wheel. 



He reached an oar to her from below, 
And stiffened his arms to clutch her so. 

But now from the ship some spied the boat, 
And " Saved ! " was the cry from many a throat. 

And down to the boat they leaped and fell : 

It turned as a bucket turns in a well, 

And nothing was there but the surge and swell. 

The prince that was and the king to come, 
There in an instant gone to his doom. 

He was a prince of lust and pride ; 

He showed no grace till the hour he died. 

God only knows where his soul did wake, 
But I saw him die for his sister's sake. 

By none but me can the tale be told. 

Three hundred souls were all lost but one, 
And I drifted over the sea alone. 

The king had watched with a heart sore stirred 
For two whole days, and this was the third : 

And still to all his court would say, 
"What keeps my son so long away?" 



404 Speaker and Reader. 

But who should speak to-day of the thing 
That all knew there except the king? 

Then, pondering much, they found a way, 
And met round the king's high seat that day : 

And the king sat with a heart sore stirred, 
And seldom he spoke and seldom heard. 

'Twas then through the hall the king was 'ware 
Of a little boy with golden hair, 

Yet pale his cheek as the thorn in spring, 
And his garb black like the raven's wing. 

And the king wondered, and said, " Alack ! 
Who sends me a fair boy dressed in black ? 

" Why, sweetheart, do you pace through the hall 
As though my court were a funeral ? " 

Then lowly knelt the child at the dais, 
And looked up weeping in the king's face. 

" O wherefore black, O king, ye may say, 
For white is the hue of death to-day. 

"Your son and all his fellowship 

Lie low in the sea with the White Ship." 

King Henry fell as a man struck dead ; 
And speechless still he stared from his bed 
When to him next day my rede I read. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 405 

PEGASUS IN POUND. 1 
Henry W. Longfellow. 

Once into a quiet village, 

Without haste and without heed, 
In the golden prime of morning, 

Strayed the poet's winged steed. 

It was autumn, and incessant 

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, 
And, like living coals, the apples 

Burned among the withering leaves. 

Loud the clamorous bell was ringing 

From its belfry gaunt and grim ; 
'T was the daily call to labor, 

Not a triumph meant for him. 

Not the less he saw the landscape, 

In its gleaming vapor veiled ; 
Not the less he breathed the odors 

That the dying leaves exhaled. 

Thus, upon the village common, 
By the schoolboys he was found ; 

And the wise men, in their wisdom, 
Put him straightway into pound. 

1 From Longfellow } s Poetical Works. Vol. I, pages 364-366. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



406 Speaker and Reader. 

Then the somber village crier, 
Ringing loud his brazen bell, 

Wandered down the street proclaiming 
There was an estray to sell. 

And the curious country people, 

Rich and poor, and young and old, 

Came in haste to see this wondrous 
Winged steed, with mane of gold. 

Thus the day passed, and the evening 
Fell, with vapors cold and dim ; 

But it brought no food nor shelter, 
Brought no straw nor stall, for him. 

Patiently, and still expectant, 

Looked he through the wooden bars, 

Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, 
Saw the tranquil, patient stars ; 

Till at length the bell at midnight 
Sounded from its dark abode, 

And, from out a neighboring farmyard, 
Loud the cock Alectryon crowed. 

Then, with nostrils wide distended, 
Breaking from his iron chain, 

And unfolding far his pinions, 
To those stars he soared again. 

On the morrow, when the village 
Woke to all its toil and care, 

Lo ! the strange steed had departed, 
And they knew not when nor where. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 407 

But they found, upon the greensward, 
Where his struggling hoofs had trod, 

Pure and bright, a fountain flowing 
From the hoof-marks in the sod. 

From that hour, the fount unfailing 
Gladdens the whole region round, 

Strengthening all who drink its waters, 
While it soothes them with its sound. 



% 

A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET. 1 
Henry W. Longfellow. 

A fleet with flags arrayed 

Sailed from the port of Brest, 
And the admiral's ship displayed 

The signal, "Steer southwest." 
For this Admiral D'Anville 

Had sworn by cross and crown 
To ravage with fire and steel 

Our helpless Boston Town. 

There were rumors in the street, 
In the houses there w r as fear 

Of the coming of the fleet, 

And the danger hovering near. 

1 From Longfellow *s Complete Poetical Works. Pages 337, 338. 
Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



408 Speaker and Reader, 

And while from mouth to mouth 
Spread the tidings of dismay, 

I stood in the Old South, 

Saying humbly : " Let us pray ! 

" O Lord ! we would not advise ; 

But if in thy Providence 
A tempest should arise 

To drive the French fleet hence, 
And scatter it far and wide, 

Or sink it in the sea, 
We should be satisfied, 

And thine the glory be." 

This was the prayer I made, 

For my soul was all on flame, 
And even as I prayed 

The answering tempest came ; 
It came with a mighty power, 

Shaking the windows and walls, 
And tolling the bell in the tower, 

As it tolls at funerals. 

The lightning suddenly 

Unsheathed its flaming sword, 
And I cried, " Stand still and see 

The salvation of the Lord ! " 
The heavens were black with cloud, 

The sea was white with hail, 
And ever more fierce and loud 

Blew the October gale. 



Humor \ Sentiment, and Reflection. 409 

The fleet it overtook, 

And the broad sails in the van 
Like the tents of Cushan shook, 

Or the curtains of Midian. 
Down on the reeling decks 

Crashed the overwhelming seas ; 
Ah ! never were there wrecks 

So pitiful as these ! 

Like a potter's vessel broke 

The great ships of the line; 
They were carried away as a smoke, 

Or sank like lead in the brine. 
O Lord ! before thy path 

They vanished and ceased to b % e, 
When thou didst walk in wrath 

With thine horses through the sea. 



SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 1 
Henry W. Longfellow. 

Southward with fleet of ice 

Sailed the corsair Death ; 
Wild and fast blew the blast, 

And the east-wind was his breath. 

1 From Longfellow *s Complete Poetical Works. Page 105. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mihiin & Co. 



410 Speaker and Reader. 

His lordly ships of ice 

Glisten in the sun ; 
On each side, like pennons wide, 

Flashing crystal streamlets run. 

His sails of white sea-mist 
Dripped with silver rain ; 

But where he passed there were cast 
Leaden shadows o'er the main. 

Eastward from Campobello 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; 

Three days or more seaward he bore, 
Then, alas ! the land wind failed. 

Alas ! the land wind failed, 
And ice-cold grew the night ; 

And nevermore, on sea or shore, 

Should Sir Humphrey see the light. 

He sat upon the deck, 

The Book was in his hand ; 

" Do not fear ! Heaven is as near," 
He said, " by water as by land ! " 

In the first watch of the night, 
Without a signal's sound, 

Out of the sea, mysteriously, 

The fleet of Death rose all around. 

The moop. and the evening star 
Were hanging in the shrouds ; 

Every mast, as it passed, 

Seemed to rake the passing clouds. 



Humor y Sentiment, and Reflection. 411 

They grappled with their prize, 

At midnight black and cold ! 
As of a rock was the shock ; 

Heavily the ground-swell rolled. 

Southward through day and dark, 

They drift in close embrace, 
With mist and rain, o'er the open main ; 

Yet there seems no change of place. 

Southward, forever southward, 

They drift through dark and day, 

And like a dream, in the Gulf- Stream 
Sinking, vanish all away. 



% 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 

It is an ancient mariner, 

And he stoppeth one of three : 

" By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 

" The bridegroom's doors are oj^ned wide, 
And I am next of kin ; 
The guests are met, the feast is set — 
May st hear the merry din." 



412 Speaker and Reader. 

He holds him with his skinny hand : 
" There was a ship/' quoth he. 
"Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!" 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 

He holds him with his glittering eye — 
The wedding guest stood still ; 
And listens like a three-years' child : 
The mariner hath his will. 

The wedding guest sat on a stone — 
He cannot choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed mariner : 

"The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared; 

Merrily did we drop 

Below the kirk, below the hill, 

Below the lighthouse top. 

" The sun came up upon the left, 
Out of the sea came he ; 
And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea ; 

" Higher and higher every day, 

Till over the mast at noon" — 

The wedding guest here beat his breast, 

For he heard the loud bassoon. 

The bride hath passed into the hall — 
Red as a rose is she ! 
Nodding their heads before her goes 
The merry minstrelsy. 



Humor , Sentiment, and Refection. 413 

The wedding guest he beat his breast, 
Yet he cannot choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed mariner : 

"And now the storm blast came, and he 
Was tyrannous and strong ; 
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
And chased us south along. 

" With sloping masts and dipping prow, 

As who pursued with yell and blow 

Still treads the shadow of his foe 

And forward bends his head, 

The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast, 

And southward aye we fled. 

" And now there came both mist and snow, 
And it grew wondrous cold ; 
And ice, mast high, came floating by, 
As green as emerald. 

" And through the drifts the snowy cliffs 
Did send a dismal sheen ; 
Nor shapes of men nor beast we ken — 
The ice was all between. 

" The ice was here, the ice was there, 

The ice was all around ; 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 

Like noises in a swound ! 



414 Speaker and Reader. 

" At length did cross an albatross — 
Through the fog it came; 
As if it had been a Christian soul, 
We hailed it in God's name. 

" It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it flew ; 
The ice did split with a thunder-fit ; 
The helmsman steer 'd us through! 

" And a good south wind sprang up behind ; 

The albatross did follow, 

And every day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners' hollo. 

"In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
It perch'd for vespers nine ; 
Whiles all the night, thro' fog smoke white, 
Glimmer'd the white moonshine." 

" God save thee, ancient mariner ! 
From the fiends that plague thee thus ! — 
Why look'st thou so?" — "With my cross-bow 
I shot the albatross." 

% 

HELVELLYN. 1 

Walter Scott. 

I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, 
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and 
wide ; 

1 From Scotfs Poetical Works. Pages 217-219. George Bell & Sons. 



Humor -, Sentiment , and Reflection. 415 

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle "was yelling, 

And starting around me the echoes replied. 

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was 

bending, 
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, 
One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending, 
When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer 

had died. 

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain 

heather, 
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay, 
Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, 
Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay. 
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, 
For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, 
The much-loved remains of her master defended, 
And chased the hill -fox and the raven away. 

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber ? 
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou 

start ? 
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number, 
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart ? 
And, oh, was it meet that — no requiem read o'er him, 
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, 
And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him — 
Unhonored the Pilgrim from life should depart ? 

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded, 
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall, 
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, 



416 Speaker and Reader. 

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall : 
Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are 

gleaming ; 
In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming, 
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, 
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall. 

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of Nature, 

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, 

When, 'wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in 

stature, 
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam ; 
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, 
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, 
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying 
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam. 

% 

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 1 

John G. Whittier. 

Of all the rides since the birth of time, 

Told in story or sung in rhyme, — 

On Apuleius's Golden Ass, 

Or one-eyed Calender's horse of brass, 

Witch astride of a human back ; 

Islam's prophet on Al Borak, — 

The strangest ride that ever was sped 

1 From Whittier 's Poetical Works. Pages 55, 56. Copyright by 
Floughton, Mifflin & Co. 



Humor, Sentitnent, and Reflection. 4 1 7 

Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Body of turkey, head of owl, 
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, 
Feathered and ruffled in every part, 
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. 
Scores of women, old and young, 
Strong of muscle and glib of tongue, 
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, 
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : 
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, 

Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, 

Wild eyed, free limbed, such as chase 

Bacchus round some antique vase, 

Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, 

Loose of 'kerchief and loose of hair, 

With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, 

Over and over the Maenads sang : 

" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Small pity for him ! — He sailed away 
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, — 
Sailed aw^ay from a sinking wreck, 



418 Speaker and Reader. 

With his own townspeople on her deck ! 

"Lay by! lay by!" they called to him. 

Back he answered, " Sink or swim ! 

Brag of your catch of fish again ! " 

And off he sailed through the fog and rain ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur 
That wreck shall lie forevermore. 
Mother and sister, wife and maid 
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead 
Over the moaning and rainy sea, — 
Looked for the coming that might not be ! 
What did the winds and the sea-birds say 
Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Through the street, on either side, 
Up flew windows, doors swung wide ; 
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, 
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. 
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, 
Hulks of old sailors run aground, 
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, 
And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain : 
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 



Humor, Sentiment, and Refection. 419 

Sweetly along the Salem road 

Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. 

Little the wicked skipper knew 

Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. 

Riding there in his sorry trim, 

Like an Indian idol glum and grim, 

Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear 

Of voices shouting far and near : 

" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

" Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried ; 

" What to me is this noisy ride ? 

What is the shame that clothes the skin 

To -the nameless horror that lives within ? 

Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, 

And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! 

Hate me and curse me, — I only dread 

The hand of God and the face of the dead ! " 
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea 
Said, " God has touched him ! — why should we ? " 
Said an old wife, mourning her only son, 
"Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!" 
So with soft relentings and rude excuse, 
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 
And gave him a cloak to hide him in, 



420 Speaker and Reader. 

And left him alone with his shame and sin. 
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 



THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. 1 
John G. Whittier. 

Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with 
rolling pebbles, ran, 

The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks 
of Cape Ann ; 

On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade, 

And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moon- 
light overlaid. 

On his slow round walked the sentry, south and east- 
ward looking forth 

O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers 
stretching north, — 

Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, 
with bush and tree, 

Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty 
sea. 

1 From Whittier^s Complete Poetical Works. Pages 53, 54. Copy- 
right by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 421 

Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by dying 

brands, 
Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets in 

their hands ; 
On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was 

shared, 
And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from beard 

to beard. 

Long they sat and talked together, — talked of wizards 

Satan-sold ; . ■ 

Of all ghostly sights and noises, — signs and wonders 

manifold ; 
Of the specter-ship of Salem, with the dead men in her 

shrouds, 
Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning 

clouds. 

Of the marvelous valley hidden in the depths of 

Gloucester woods, 
Full of plants that love the summer, — blooms of 

warmer latitudes ; 
Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's flowery 

vines, 
And the white magnolia blossoms star the twilight of the 

pines ! 

But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky tones of 

fear, 
As they spake of present tokens of the powers of evil 

near ! 



422 Speaker and Reader. 

Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of 

gun; 
Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of mortals 

run! 

Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from the 

midnight wood they came, — 
Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, 

its volleyed flame ; 
Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or 

.lost in air, 
All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands 

lay bare. 

Midnight came ; from out the forest moved a dusky 

mass that soon 
Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching 

in the moon. 
" Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I foil the 

Evil One!" 
And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down 

his gun. 

Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded wall 

about ; 
Once again the leveled muskets through the palisades 

flashed out, 
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top might 

not shun, 
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant wing 

to the sun. 



Humor , Sentiment, and Reflection. 423 

Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless shower 
of lead. 

With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the phantoms 
fled; 

Once again without a shadow on the sands the moon- 
light lay, 

And the white smoke curling through it drifted slowly 
down the bay ! 

" God preserve us ! " said the captain ; " never mortal foes 

were there ; 
They have vanished with their leader, Prince and Power 

of the air ! 
Lay aside your useless weapons ; skill and prowess 

naught avail ; 
They who do the Devil's service wear their master's coat 

of mail ! " 

So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again a 

warning call 
Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round the 

dusky hall : 
And they looked to flint and priming, and they longed 

for break of day ; 
But the captain closed his Bible : " Let us cease from 

man, and pray ! " 

To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers 

seemed near ; 
And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots 

in holy fear. 



424 Speaker and Reader. 

Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed 

and bare, 
Every stout knee pressed the flagstones, as the captain 

led in prayer. 

Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the specters 
round the wall, 

But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears and 
hearts of all, — 

Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish ! Never after 
mortal man 

Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the block- 
house of Cape Ann. 



% 

THE INCHCAPE ROCK. 

Robert Southey. 

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, 
The ship was still as she could be ; 
Her sails from heaven received no motion, 
Her keel was steady in the ocean. 

Without either sign or sound of their shock, 
The waves flowed over the Inch cape Rock ; 
So little they rose, so little they fell, 
They did not move the Inchcape Bell. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 425 

The Abbot of Aberbrothok 
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock ; 
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, 
And over the waves its warning rung. 

When the rock was hid by the surges' swell, 
The mariners heard the warning bell, 
And then they knew the perilous rock, 
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok. 

The sun in heaven was shining gay ; 

All things were joyful on that day; 

The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled around, 

And there was joyance in their sound. 

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen 
A darker speck on the ocean green ; 
Sir Ralph- the Rover walked his deck, 
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck. 

He felt the cheering power of spring, 
It made him whistle, it made him sing ; 
His heart was mirthful to excess, 
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness. 

His eye was on the Inchcape float ; 
Quoth he, " My men, put out the boat, 
And row me to the Inchcape Rock, 
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok." 

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, 

And to the Inchcape Rock they go ; 

Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, 

And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float. 



426 Speaker and Reader. 

Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound, 
The bubbles rose and burst around ; 
Quoth Sir Ralph, " The next who comes to the Rock 
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok." 

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away, 
He scoured the seas for many a day, 
And now, grown rich with plundered store, 
He steers his course for Scotland's shore. 

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky 
They cannot see the sun on high ; 
The wind hath blown a gale all day ; 
At evening it hath died away. 

On the deck the Rover takes his stand ; 
So dark it is they see no land ; 
Quoth Sir Ralph, " It will be lighter soon, 
For there is the dawn of the rising moon." 

"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? 
For methinks one should be near the shore. 
Now where we are I cannot tell, 
But I wish I could hear the Inch cape Bell." 

They hear no sound ; the swell is strong ; 
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along 
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock — 
"O Death! it is the Inchcape Rock." 

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair, 
He cursed himself in his despair ; 
The waves rush in on every side, 
The ship is sinking beneath the tide. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 427 

But, even in his dying fear, 
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear — 
A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell, 
The Devil below was ringing his knell. 



% 



CHILDE HAROLD'S FAREWELL TO 
ENGLAND. 1 

Lord Byron. 

Adieu, adieu ! my native shore 

Fades o'er the waters blue; 
The night winds sigh, the breakers roar, 

And shrieks the wild sea-mew. 
Yon sun that sets upon the sea 

We follow in his flight ; 
Farewell awhile to him and thee, 

My native land — good night ! 

A few short hours and he will rise 

To give the morrow birth ; 
And I shall hail the main and skies 

But not my mother earth. 
Deserted is my own good hall, 

Its hearth is desolate; 
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall ; 

My dog howls at the gate. 

1 From Childe Harold. Canto I, stanza 13. Pages 58, 59. The 
Clarendon Press, Oxford. 



428 Speaker and Reader. 

" Come hither, hither, my little page ! 

Why dost thou weep and wail ? 
Or dost thou dread the billows' rage, 

Or tremble at the gale ? 
But dash the tear-drop from thine eye ; 

Our ship is swift and strong : 
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly 

More merrily along." 

" Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 

I fear not wave nor wind : 
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I 

Am sorrowful in mind ; 
For I have from my father gone, 

A mother whom I love, 
And have no friend, save thee alone, 

But thee — and one above. 

" My father bless'd me fervently, 

Yet did not much complain ; 
But sorely will my mother sigh 

Till I come back again." — 
" Enough, enough, my little lad ! 

Such tears become thine eye ; 
If I thy guileless bosom had, 

Mine own would not be dry." 



% 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 429 

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. 

Robert Southey. 

It was a summer evening, 

Old Kaspar's work was done, 
And he before his cottage door 

Was sitting in the sun, 
And by him sported on the green 
His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 

She saw her brother Peterkin 
Roll something large and round, 

Which he beside the rivulet, 
In playing there, had found ; 

He came to ask what he had found, 

That was so large and smooth and round. 

Old Kaspar took it from the boy, 

Who stood expectant by ; 
And then the old man shook his head, 

And with a natural sigh, 
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull/' said he, 
" Who fell in the great victory. 

" I find them in the garden, 

For there 's many here about ; 
And often, when I go to plow, 

The plowshare turns them out ; 
For many thousand men," said he, 
"Were slain in that great victory." 



430 Speaker and Header. 

"Now tell us what 'twas all about, " 

Young Peterkin he cries ; 
And little Wilhelmine looks up 

With wonder-waiting eyes ; 
" Now tell us all about the w T ar, 
And what they fought each other for." 

" It was the English," Kaspar cried, 
" Who put the French to rout ; 

But what they fought each other for 
I could not well make out ; 

But everybody said," quoth he, 

" That 't was a famous victory. 

" My father lived at Blenheim then, 
Yon little stream hard by ; 

They burnt his dwelling to the ground, 
And he was forced to fly ; 

So with his wife and child he fled, 

Nor had he where to rest his head. 

" With fire and sword the country round 

Was wasted far and wide, 
And many a childing mother then 

And new-born baby died ; 
But things like that, you know, must be 
At every famous victory. 

"They say it was a shocking sight 

After the field was won ; 
For many thousand bodies here 

Lay rotting in the sun ; 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 431 

But things like that, you know, must be 
After a famous victory. 

" Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, 

And our good Prince Eugene." 
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" 

Said little Wilhelmine. 
"Nay — nay — my little girl," quoth he, 
"It was a fanrous victory. 

" And everybody praised the Duke, 

Who this great fight did win." 
" But what good came of it at last ? " 

Quoth little Peterkin. 
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he; 
"But 'twas a famous victory." 

% 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 1 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
Sails the unshadowed main, — 
The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 
• And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 

1 From Holmes' Poetical Works. Pages 149, 150. Copyright by 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



432 Speaker and Header. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil ; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 
Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last -found home, and knew the old 
no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
Child of the wandering sea, 
Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 
While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice 
that sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 






Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 433 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. 



ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 

Thomas Gray. 



Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, 

Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 

No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; 

How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 



434 Speaker and Reader. 

Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour — 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 



CHRISTMAS. 1 

Alfred Tennyson. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 
For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

1 From In Memoriam, CVI. 



Humor y Sentiment, and Reflection. 435 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 



Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times ; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right, 

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 



* 



436 Speaker and Reader. 

THE LOST LEADER. 1 
Robert Browning. 

Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 

So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their 
graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen ; 

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

We shall march prospering, — not through his presence ; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire ; 
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devils' triumph and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 

1 From Browning's Poetical Works. Page 164. Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. 1895. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 437 

Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 

There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad, confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 

% 

THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER. 1 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossomed furze, unprofitably gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
The village master taught his little school ; 
A man severe he was, and stern to view — 
I knew him well, and every truant knew ; 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee, 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
' Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned ; 
Yet he was kind — or, if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
The village all declared how much he knew ; 

1 From The Deserted Village. 



438 Speaker and Reader. 

'T was certain he could write, and cipher too ; 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge ; 
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 
For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

% 

THE YOUTH'S REPLY TO DUTY. 1 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

In an age of fops and toys, 

Wanting wisdom, void of right, 

Who shall nerve heroic boys 

To hazard all in Freedom's fight, — 

Break sharply off their jolly games, 

Forsake their comrades gay 

And quit proud homes and youthful dames 

For famine, toil, and fray ? 

Yet on the nimble air benign 

Speed nimbler messages, 

That waft the breath of grace divine 

To hearts in sloth and ease. 

1 From Poems of R. W. Emerson, Voluntaries, III. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. Copyright, 1883. by Edward W, Emerson. 



Humor ■, Sentiment, and Reflection. 439 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, / can. 

THE MINSTREL. 1 

Walter Scott. 

The way was long, the wind was cold, 

The minstrel was infirm and old ; 

His withered cheek and tresses gray 

Seemed to have known a better day ; 

The harp, his sole remaining joy, 

Was carried by an orphan boy. 

The last of all the bards was he, 

Who sang of border chivalry ; 

For, welladay ! their date was fled, 

His tuneful brethren all were dead ; 

And he, neglected and oppressed, 

Wished to be with them, and at rest. 

No more on prancing palfrey borne, 

He caroled, light as lark at morn ; 

No longer courted and caressed, 

High placed in hall, a welcome guest, 

He poured, to lord and lady gay, 

The unpremeditated lay : 

Old times were changed, old manners gone ; 

1 From The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Introduction. Scott's Poetical 
Works. Vol. I, page 17. George Bell & Sons. 



440 Speaker and Reader. 

A stranger filled the Stuarts' throne ; 
The bigots of the iron time 
Had called his harmless art a crime. 
A wandering harper, scorned and poor, 
He begged his bread from door to door, 
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, 
The harp a king had loved to hear. 

WOLSEY TO CROMWELL. 1 

William Shakespeare. 

Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 

In all my miseries ; but thou hast forced me, 

Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 

Let 's dry our eyes ; and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; 

And — when I am forgotten, as I shall be, 

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 

Of me more must be heard of — say, I taught thee, 

Say, Wolsey — that once trod the ways of glory, 

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor — 

Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 

A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 

Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition : 

By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 

The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't ? 

Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee ; 

1 From King Henry VIII. Act III, Scene 2. 



Humor 9 Sentiment, and Reflection. 441 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not. 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's ; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! Serve the king ; 

And, — prithee, lead me in : 

There take an inventory of all I have, 

To the last penny ; 't is the king's : my robe, 

And my integrity to heaven, is all 

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell ! 

Had I but served my God with half the zeal 

I served my king, he w r ould not in mine age 

Have left me naked to mine enemies. 

% 

ADVICE OF POLONIUS TO HIS SON. 1 

William Shakespeare. 

Yet here, Laertes ! aboard, aboard, for shame ! 

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, 

And you are stay'd for. There ; my blessing with thee ! 

And these few precepts in thy memory 

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. 

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar ; 

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ; 

1 From Ha?nlet. Act I, Scene 3. 



442 Speaker' and Reader. 

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware 

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, 

Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice ; 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 

But not express' d in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ; 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man, 

And they in France of the best rank and station 

Are most select and generous, chief in that. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be ; 

For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 

This above all : to thine own self be true, 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Farewell ; my blessing season this in thee ! 



% 

WOLSEY'S SOLILOQUY. 1 

William Shakespeare. 

So farewell to the little good you bear me. 
Farewell ! a long farewell, to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man : to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, 

1 From King Henry VIII. Act III, Scene 2. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 443 

And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory, 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me, and now has left me, 
Weary and old with service, to the mercy 
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : 
I feel my heart new open'd. O ! how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors. 
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have ; 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. 



ANTONY ON THE DEATH OF C/ESAR. 1 

William Shakespeare. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle : I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 

1 From Julius Ccesar. Act III, Scene 2. 



444 Speaker and Reader. 

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, 

That day he overcame the Nervii : 

Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through : 

See what a rent the envious Casca made : 

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 

And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 

Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd 

If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no ; 

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : 

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him ! 

This was the most unkindest cut of all ; 

For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 

Quite vanquish'd him : then burst his mighty heart ; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 

Even at the base of Pompey's statua, 

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 

Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us. 

O, now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel 

The dint of pity : these are gracious drops. 

Kind souls, what ! weep you when you but behold 

Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 

Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors. 



% 






Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 445 

ANTONY'S SPEECH TO ROMAN CITIZENS 1 

William Shakespeare. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ; 

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 

The evil that men do lives after them, 

The good is oft interred with their bones ; 

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious : 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. 

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest — 

For Brutus is an honorable man ; 

So are they all, all honorable men — 

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 

But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill : 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept ; 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff : 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse : was this ambition ? 

1 From Julius Ccesa?'. Act III, Scene 2. 



446 Speaker and Reader. 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And, sure, he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause : 

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? 

O judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me ; 

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 

And I must pause till it come back to me. 



^ 



THE PATH OF DUTY WAS THE WAY TO 
GLORY. 1 

Alfred Texxysox. 

Yea, let all good things await 

Him who cares not to be great, 

But as he saves or serves the state. 

Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glorv : 

He that walks it, only thirsting 

For the right, and learns to deaden 

Love of self, before his journey closes, 

He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 

Into glossy purples, which outredden 

All voluptuous garden roses. 

1 From Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 447 

Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 

The path of duty was the way to glory : 

He, that ever following her commands, 

On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won 

His path upward, and prevail'd, 

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 

Are close upon the shining table-lands 

To which our God himself is moon and sun. 



THE WHISTLE. 1 

When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, 
on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went 
directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and 
being charmed with the sound of a whistle, that I met 
by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily 
offered and gave all my money for one. I then came 
home, and went whistling all over the house, much 
pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. 
My brothers and sisters and cousins, understanding the 
bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as 
much for it as it was worth ; put me in mind what good 
things I might have bought with the rest of the money ; 
and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried 
with vexation ; and the reflection gave me more chagrin 
than the whistle gave me pleasure. 

1 From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 



448 Speaker and Reader. 

This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the im- 
pression continuing in my mind ; so that often, when I 
was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to 
myself, Dorit give too much for the whistle ; and I 
saved my money. 

As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the 
actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, 
who gave too much for the whistle. 



% 



MY GRANDFATHER'S SPECTACLES. 1 

{Insight.) 

George William Curtis. 

Not long before my grandfather died, he called me to 
him, and, laying his hand upon my head, said to me : 
" My child, the world is not this great sunny piazza, nor 
life the fairy stories which the women tell you here. I 
shall soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some 
memento of my love for you, and I know of nothing 
more valuable than these spectacles." 

They proved to be wonderful spectacles ; for when 
looking through them, I could see things as they really 
are. No longer could the insincere, selfish, cowardly 
boy or the hypocritical, cruel man deceive me by pre- 
tending to be my friend. 

1 From Prue and I. Page 162. Copyright by Harper & Bros. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 449 

One day, when in search of work, I went to a great 
merchant and asked him to employ me. 

" My dear young friend," said he, " I understand that 
you have some singular secret, some charm, or spell, or 
amulet, or something, I don't know what, of which 
people are afraid. Now, you know, my dear," said the 
merchant, swelling up, and apparently prouder of his 
great stomach than of his large fortune, " I am not of 
that kind. I am not easily frightened. You may spare 
yourself the pain of trying to impose upon me. People 
who propose to come to time before I arrive are accus- 
tomed to arise very early in the morning," said he, 
thrusting his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat 
and spreading the fingers like two fans upon his bosom. 
" You have a pair of spectacles, I believe, that you 
value very much because your grandmother brought 
them as a marriage portion to your grandfather. Now, 
if you think fit to sell me those spectacles, I will pay 
you the largest market price for them. What do you 
say ? " 

I told him I had not the slightest idea of selling my 
spectacles. 

" My young friend means to eat them, I suppose," 
said he, with a contemptuous smile. 

I made no reply, but was turning to leave the office, 
when the merchant called after me : 

" My young friend, poor people should never suffer 
themselves to get into pets. Anger is an expensive 
luxury, in which only men of a certain income can 
indulge. A pair of spectacles and a hot temper are 
not the most promising capital for success in life." 



450 Speaker and Reader. 

I said nothing, but put my hand upon the door to go 
out, when the merchant said, more respectfully ; 

" Well, you foolish boy, if you will not sell your 
spectacles, perhaps you will agree to sell the use of 
them to me. That is, you shall only put them on 
when I direct you, and for my purposes. Hallo ! you 
little fool," cried he impatiently, as he saw that I intended 
to make no reply. 

But I had pulled out my spectacles and put them on 
for my own purposes, and against his wish and desire I 
looked at him, and saw a huge, bald-headed wild boar 
with gross chaps and a leering eye — only the more 
ridiculous for the high-arched, gold-bowed spectacles 
that straddled his nose. One of his fore hoofs was 
thrust into the safe, where his bills receivable were 
hived, and the other into his pocket, among the loose 
change and bills there. His ears were pricked for- 
ward with a brisk, sensitive smartness. In a world 
where prize pork was the best excellence, he would 
have carried off all the premiums. 

I stepped into the next office in the street, and a mild- 
faced, genial man, also a large and opulent merchant, 
asked me my business in such a tone that I instantly 
looked through my spectacles and saw a land flowing 
with milk and honey. There I pitched my tent, and 
stayed till the good man died and his business was 
discontinued. 



* 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 451 

LIFE'S MEASURE. 

Ben Jonson. 

It is not growing like a tree 
In bulk, doth make men better be ; 
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last; dry, bald, and sear ; 
A lily of a day 
Is fairer far, in May, 
Although it fall and die that night ; 
It was the plant and flower of light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see, 
And in short measures life may perfect be. 

THE SUNNY SIDE. 1 

Charles W. Eliot. 

We must be sure to give due weight, in our minds, to 
the good side of every event which has two sides. We 
read in the morning paper that five houses, two barns, 
three shops, and a factory have burned up in the night, 
and we do not say to ourselves that within the same 
territory five hundred thousand homes, three hundred 
thousand barns, as many shops, and a thousand factories 
have stood in safety. We observe that ten persons have 
been injured on railways within twenty-four hours, and 
we forget that two million have traveled in safety. 

1 From Contributions to Civilization. Pages 271, 272. Copyright 
by The Century Company, and printed by permission. 



452 Speaker and Reader. 

A fierce northeaster drives some vessels out of their 
course, and others upon the ruthless rocks. Property 
and life are lost. But that storm watered the crops upon 
ten thousand farms, or filled the springs which later will 
yield to men and animals their necessary drink. A tiger 
springs upon an antelope, picks out the daintiest bits 
from the carcass, and leaves the rest to the jackals. We 
say, Poor little antelope. We forget to say, Happy 
tiger ! fortunate jackals ! who were seeking their meat 
from God and found it. A house which stands in open 
ground must have a sunny side as well as a shady. Be 
sure to live on the sunny side. 

% 

IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS. 1 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Little things may be important by what they draw 
after them. I can imagine, in the visions of the night, 
as the old miller sleeps, that a crawfish comes to him 
and threatens him. You know what a crawfish is. It 
is a homely little fresh-water lobster that loves water 
and mud. He threatens the miller with disaster, except 
upon some condition granted. The surly old miller 
laughs to scorn the threat of the crawfish. The craw- 
fish departs. The miller by and by wakes up and starts 
his mill, and away goes the wheel, making music to his 
ear. The crawfish goes to the dam above. He is not 

1 From Plymouth Pulpit. Vol. V, page 154. Copyright by Fords, 
Howard & Hulbert. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 453 

much. The river is a thousand times mightier than he ; 
and so is the massive dam. But he commences to bore 
into the clay. He keeps boring, and boring, and boring, 
till by and by he has made a tunnel clear through to the 
other side of the bank. And first one drop comes 
through ; and then another ; and then another ; and each 
drop takes a little dirt with it. Gradually, the hole grows 
larger and larger. This goes on all day and all night ; 
and at length the channel is so worn that a considerable 
stream runs through it. And at last that stream 
becomes a freshet, and gains a force and impetus such 
that it carries everything with it. And away go the 
abutments and timbers of the dam ; and away goes the 
miller's mill ; and away goes his house upon the bank ; 
and the trees and all things are whelmed in the flood. 

Now, which is the stronger, the crawfish or the miller 
and his dam ? The crawfish is a little thing ; it was a 
small hole that he made ; but ah ! it was what it led to 
that determines its importance, It will never do to call 
things little till you see what they can do. 

OUR MULTITUDE OF HELPERS, 3 

George Harris. 

A single day in the life of a civilized man discloses 
the services of a multitude of helpers. When he rises, 
a sponge is placed in his hands by a Pacific Islander, a 

1 From Moral Evolution. Pages 36, yj . Copyright by Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co. 



454 Speaker and Reader. 

cake of soap by a Frenchman, a rough towel by a Turk. 
His merino underwear he takes from the hand of a 
Spaniard, his linen from a Belfast manufacturer, his outer 
garments from a Birmingham weaver, his scarf from a 
French silk grower, his shoes from a Brazilian grazier. 
At breakfast, his cup of coffee is poured by natives of 
Java and Arabia ; his rolls are passed by a Kansas 
farmer, his beefsteak by a Texas ranchman, his orange 
by a Florida negro. He is taken to the city by the 
descendants of James Watt ; his messages are carried 
hither and thither by Edison ; his day's stint of work is 
done for him by a thousand Irishmen in his factory ; or 
he pleads in a court which was founded by ancient 
Romans, and for the support of which all citizens are 
taxed ; or, in his study at home he reads books composed 
by English historians and French scientists. In the 
evening he is entertained by German singers, who repeat 
the myths of Norsemen, or by a company of actors, who 
render the plays of Shakespeare; and finally he is put 
to bed by South Americans who bring hair, by Pennsyl- 
vania miners and furnace workers who bring steel, by 
Mississippi planters who bring cotton, or, if he prefers, 
by Russian peasants who bring flax, and by Labrador 
fowlers who smooth his pillow. A million men, women, 
and children have been working for him that he may 
have his day of comfort and pleasure. In return he has 
contributed his mite to add a unit to the common stock 
of necessaries and luxuries from which the world draws. 
Each is working for all ; all are working for each. 

% 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 455 

THE SOCIETY OF GOOD BOOKS. 1 
John Ruskin. 

We cannot know whom we would ; and those whom 
we know, we cannot have at our side when we most need 
them. Yet there is a society continually open to us, of 
people who will talk to us as long as we like ; — talk to 
us in the best words they can choose, and of the things 
nearest their hearts. And this society, because it is 
so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting 
round us all day long, — kings and statesmen lingering 
patiently, not to grant audience, but to gain it ! — in 
those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our book- 
case shelves, — we make no account of that company, — 
perhaps never listen to a word they would say, all day 
long ! 

Suppose you could be put behind a screen, would you 
not be glad to listen to their words, though you were 
forbidden to advance beyond the screen ? And when 
the screen is only a little less, folded in two instead of 
four, and you can be hidden behind the cover of the two 
boards that bind a book, and listen all day long, not to 
the casual talk, but to the studied, determined, chosen 
addresses of the wisest of men; — this station of audi- 
ence, and honorable privy council, you despise ! 

This eternal court is always open to you, with its 
society wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the 
chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time. Into 
that you may enter always ; in that you may take fellow- 

1 From Sesame and Lilies. 



456 Speaker and Reader. 

ship and rank according to your wish ; from that, once 
entered into it, you can never be an outcast but by your 
own fault. 

It is open to labor and to merit, but to nothing else. 
No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice 
deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the 
deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. 

" Do you deserve to enter ? Pass. Do you ask to be 
the companion of nobles ? Make yourself noble, and you 
shall be. Do you long for the conversation of the wise ? 
Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But on 
other terms ? — no. If you will not rise to us, we can- 
not stoop to you." 

% 

THE DIGNITY OF WORK. 1 

Thomas Carlyle. 

There is a perpetual nobleness in work. There is 
always hope in a man that works : in idleness alone is 
there perpetual despair. Blessed is he who has found 
his work ; let him ask no other blessedness. All true 
work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but hand-labor, 
there is something of divineness. Sweat of the brow ; 
and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the 
heart ; this is the noblest thing yet discovered under 
God's sky. 

Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn 
Craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously 

1 Chapters on " Labor and Reward " in Past and Present, and 
" Helotage " in Sartor Pesartus. 



Hu??2or, Sentiment , and Reflection. 457 

conquers earth and makes her man's. Venerable to me 
is the hard hand ; crooked, coarse ; wherein notwith- 
standing lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of 
the scepter of this planet. Venerable too is the rugged 
face, all weather-tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelli- 
gence ; for it is the face of a man living manlike. Toil 
on, toil on : thou art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; 
thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily 
bread. 

A second man I honor, and still more highly : him who 
is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable ; not daily 
bread, but the bread of life. Is not he too in his duty ? 
If the poor and humble toil that we have food, must not 
the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have 
light, have guidance, freedom, immortality ? — These two, 
in all their degrees I honor ; all else is chaff and dust, 
which let the wind blow whither it listeth. 



% 

DE MASSA OB DE SHEEPFOL'. 
Sarah P. McLean Greene. 

De massa ob de sheepfol', 
Dat guard de sheepfol' bin, 

Look' out in de gloomerin' meadows, 
Whar de long night rain begin : — 

So he call to de hirelin' shep'a'd, 

" Is my sheep, is dey all come in ? " 






458 Speaker and Reader. 

Oh, den says de hirelin' shep'a'd, 

"Dey's some, dey 's black and thin, 

An' some, dey 's po' oV wedda's 
Dat can't come home ag'in, 

Dey is los'," says de hirelin' shep'a'd, — 
" But de res' dey's all brung in." 

Den de massa ob de sheepfol', 

Dat guard de sheepfol' bin, 
Goes down in de gloomerin' meadows, 

Whar de long night rain begin: — 
So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfol' 

Callin' sof, "Come in, come in." 

Den up tro de gloomerin' meadows, 
Tro de col' night rain and win', 

And up tro de gloomerin' rain-paf, 
Whar de sleet fa' pie'cin' thin, 

De po' los' sheep o' de sheepfol' 
Dey all comes gadderin' in. 

THE PURITAN. 1 

Thomas B. Macaulay. 

The Puritan was made up of two different men, the 
one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the 
other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated 

1 Essay on Milton. Pages 76, 77. The Macmillan Company. 



Humor y Sentiment, and Reflection. 459 

himself in the dust before his Maker : but he set his 
foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retire- 
ment, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. 
He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. 
He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers 
of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or 
woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like 
Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the scepter of 
the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bit- 
terness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. 
But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his 
sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul 
had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who 
saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and 
heard nothing from them but their groans and their 
whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had 
little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall 
of debate or on the field of battle. These fanatics 
brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judg- 
ment and an immutability of purpose which some writers 
have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but 
which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The 
intensity of their feelings on one subject made them 
tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment 
had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and 
fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. 
They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and 
their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. 

% 



460 Speaker and Reader. 

THE NEW ERA. 1 

Thomas Carlyle. 

The world is all so changed ; so much that seemed 
vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is 
beginning to be ! — Borne over the Atlantic, to the 
closing ear of Louis XV, King by the Grace of God, 
what sounds are these ; muffled-ominous, new in our 
centuries ? Boston Harbor is black with unexpected 
Tea : behold a Pennsylvanian Congress gather ; and ere 
long, on Bunker Hill, Democracy announcing, in rifle- 
volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the 
tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirl- 
wind-like, will envelop the whole world ! 

Sovereigns die and sovereignties : how all dies, and 
is for a Time only. The Merovingian Kings, slowly 
wending on their bullock-carts through the streets of 
Paris ; with their long hair flowing, have all wended 
slowly on, — into Eternity. Charlemagne sleeps at 
Salzburg, with truncheon grounded ; only Fable expect- 
ing that he will awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin 
Bow-legged, where now is their eye of menace, their 
voice of command ? Rollo and his shaggy Northmen 
cover not the Seine with ships, but have sailed off on 
a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead now needs no 
combing ; Iron-cutter cannot cut a cobweb ; shrill Fre- 
degonda, shrill Brunhilda have had out their hot life- 
scold, and lie silent, their hot life-frenzy cooled. They 

1 From The French Revolution. Vol. I, pages 6, 7. Harper & 
Bros. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 461 

all are gone ; sunk, — down, down, with the tumult 
they made ; and the rolling and the trampling of ever 
new generations passes over them ; and they hear it 
not any more forever. 



WHEN NAPOLEON ASCENDED HIS 
THRONE. 1 

Wendell Phillips. 

Five hundred irresolute men were met in that As- 
sembly which called itself, and pretended to be, the 
government of France. They heard that the mob of 
Paris was coming the next morning, thirty thousand 
strong, to turn them, as was usual in those days, out of 
doors. And where did this seemingly great power go 
for its support and refuge ? They sent Tallien to seek 
out a boy lieutenant, — the shadow of an officer, so thin 
and pallid that, when he was placed on the stand before 
them, the president of the Assembly, fearful, if the fate 
of France rested on the shrunken form, the ashy cheek 
before him, that all hope was gone, asked, " Young 
man, can you protect the Assembly ? " And the stern 
lips of the Corsican boy parted only to reply, " I always 
do what I undertake." Then and there Napoleon as- 
cended his throne ; and the next day, from the steps 
of St. Roche, thundered forth the cannon which taught 
the mob of Paris for the first time that it had a master. 

1 From Speeches and Lectures. Page 37. Lee & Shepard. 



462 Speaker and Header. 

NAPOLEON. 1 
Robert G. Ingersoll. 

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old 
Napoleon — a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit 
almost for a deity dead — and gazed upon the sarcopha- 
gus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last 
the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balus- 
trade and thought about the career of the greatest 
soldier of the modern world. 

I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, con- 
templating suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him 
putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw 
him at the head of the army of Italy. I saw him cross- 
ing the bridge of Lodi with the tricolor in his hand. 
I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the Pyramids. 
I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of 
France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at 
Marengo, at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in 
Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry 
of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's 
withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and 
disaster, driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris 
— clutched like a wild beast — banished to Elba. I 
saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of 
his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of 
Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck 
the fortunes of their former king, — and I saw him at 

1 From Prose-Poems. Pages 97-99. Copyright by C. P. Farrell. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 463 

St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing 
out upon the sad and solemn sea. 

I thought of the orphans and widows he had made, 
of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the 
only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart 
by the cold hand of ambition. And I said : " I would 
rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden 
shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine 
growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple 
in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun. I would 
rather have been that poor peasant, with my loving wife 
by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with 
my children upon my knees and their arms about me, 
I would rather have been that man, and gone down to 
the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to 
have been that imperial impersonation of force and 
murder, known as Napoleon the Great." 

% 

THE DEAD NAPOLEON. 1 

William M. Thackeray. 



Tell me what find we to admire 
In epaulets and scarlet coats, 

In men because they load and fire, 
And know the art of cutting throats ? 

1 From The Chronicle of the Drum. 



464 Speaker and Reader. 

And what care we for war and wrack, 
How kings and heroes rise and fall ? 

Look yonder ; in his coffin black, 
There lies the greatest of them all ! 

He captured many thousand guns ; 

He wrote "The Great" before his name; 
And dying only left his sons 

The recollection of his shame. 

Though more than half the world was his, 
He died without a rood his own ; 

And borrow' d from his enemies 
Six foot of ground to lie upon. 

He fought a thousand glorious wars ; 

And more than half the world was his, 
And somewhere, now, in yonder stars, 

Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is. 



f? 



JOAN OF ARC. 1 

Thomas De Quincey. 

Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl ! whom, from 
earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and 
self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for 

1 From Be Quincey 's Works. Vol. Ill, pages 207, 208. Adam and 
Charles Black. 



Humor \ Sentiment, and Reflection. 465 

thy truth, that never once — no, not for a moment of 
weakness — didst thou revel in the visions of coronets 
and honor from man. Coronets for thee ! Oh, no ! 
Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those 
that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when 
the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be 
sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of 
France, but she will not hear thee ! When the thun- 
ders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall 
proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that 
gave up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd 
girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer 
and to do, that was thy portion in this life ; that was 
thy destiny ; and not for a moment was it hidden from 
thyself. Life, thou saidst, is short ; and the sleep which 
is in the grave is long ! Let me use that life, so transi- 
tory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to 
comfort the sleep which is so long. 



A MAN PASSES FOR THAT HE IS WORTH. 1 

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

A max passes for that he is worth. The world is 
full of judgment days, and into every assembly that a 
man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged 
and stamped. In every troop of boys that whoop and 

1 From " Compensation and Spiritual Laws," Essays. First Series. 
Pages 99, 100, 106, 107, 149-151. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Copyright 
by Edward W. Emerson. 



466 Speaker and Reader. 

run in each yard and square, a newcomer is as well 
and accurately weighed in the course of a few days 
and stamped with his right number, as if he had 
undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, 
and temper. A stranger comes from a distant 
school, with better dress, with trinkets in his pockets, 
with airs and pretensions ; an older boy says to 
himself, " It 's of no use ; we shall find him out to- 
morrow." 

Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. A man 
passes for that he is worth. What he is engraves 
itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in 
letters of light. Concealment avails him nothing, boast- 
ing nothing. There is confession in the glances of our 
eyes, in our smiles, in salutations, and the grasp of 
hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good im- 
pression. Men know not why they do not trust him, 
but they do not trust him. His vice glasses his eye, 
cuts lines of mean expression in his cheek, pinches the 
nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of the 
head, and writes O fool ! fool ! on the forehead of a 
king. 

If you would not be known to do anything, never do 
it. A broken complexion, a swinish look, ungenerous 
acts — all blab. Be, and not seem. Justice is not post- 
poned. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, 
every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence 
and certainty. Crime and punishment grow out of one 
stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens 
within the flower of the pleasure that concealed it. 
Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, 



Humor , Sentiment, and Reflection, 467 

cannot be severed. Tit for tat ; an eye for an eye ; a 
tooth for a tooth ; blood for blood ; measure for measure ; 
love for love. You cannot do wrong without suffer- 
ing wrong. 



DYING DREAM OF THE BISHOP OF 
BEAUVAIS. 1 

Thomas De Quincey. 

There is the Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the 
shelter of thickets. What building is that which hands 
so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will 
they burn the child of Domremy a second time ? No ; 
it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds ; and two nations 
stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of 
Beauvais sit again upon the judgment seat, and again 
number the hours for the innocent ? Ah, no ! he is the 
prisoner at the bar. Already all is waiting ; the mighty 
audience is gathered, the Court is hurrying to their seats, 
the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, 
the judge is taking his place. Oh ! but this is sudden. 
My lord, have you no counsel ? " Counsel I have none : 
in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counselor there is 
none now that would take a brief for me; all are silent/' 
Is it, indeed, come to this ? Alas ! the time is short, 
the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into 
infinity, but yet I will search in it for somebody to take 

1 From Joan of Arc. De Quincey* s Works. Vol. Ill, pages 244, 245. 
Adam and Charles Black. 



468 Speaker and Reader. 

your brief : I know of somebody that will be your 
counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domremy? 
Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims ? 
Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from 
walking the furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the 
shepherd girl, counselor that had none for herself, 
whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. She it is, I en- 
gage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, Bishop, 
that will plead for you ; yes, Bishop, she — when heaven 
and earth are silent. 



« 



THE SOLITUDE OF ALEXANDER 
SELKIRK. 

William Cowper. 

I am monarch of all I survey — 
My right there is none to dispute ; 

From the center all round to the sea, 
I am lord of the fowl and the brute. 

Solitude ! where are the charms 
That sages have seen in thy face ? 

Better dwell in the midst of alarms 
Than reign in this horrible place. 

1 am out of humanity's reach ; 

I must finish my journey alone, 
Never hear the sweet music of speech — 
I start at the sound of my owi; 



Humor, Senti?nent, and Reflection. 469 

The beasts that roam over the plain 

My form with indifference see ; 
They are so unacquainted with man, 

Their tameness is shocking to me. 

Society, friendship, and love, 

Divinely bestowed upon man, 
Oh, had I the wings of a dove, 

How soon would I taste you again ! 
My sorrows I then might assuage 

In the ways of religion and truth — 
Might learn from the wisdom of age, 

And be cheered by the sallies of youth. 

Religion ! what treasure untold 

Resides in that heavenly word ! 
More precious than silver and gold, 

Or all that this earth can afford ; 
But the sound of the church-going bell 

These valleys and rocks never heard, 
Never sighed at the sound of a knell, 

Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared. 

Ye winds that have made me your sport, 

Convey to this desolate shore 
Some cordial, endearing report 

Of a land I shall visit no more ! 
My friends, do they now and then send 

A wish or a thought after me ? 
Oh, tell me I yet have a friend, 

Though a friend I am never to see. 



470 Speaker and Reader. 

How fleet is the glance of the mind ! 

Compared with the speed of its flight, 
The tempest itself lags behind 

And the swift-winged arrows of light. 
When I think of my own native land, 

In a moment I seem to be there ; 
But, alas ! recollection at hand 

Soon hurries me back to despair. 

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest ; 

The beast is laid down in his lair ; 
Even here is a season of rest, 

And I to my cabin repair. 
There 's mercy in every place ; 

And mercy — encouraging thought ! — 
Gives even affliction a grace, 

And reconciles man to his lot. 

% 

THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. 

Albert G. Greene. 

O'er a low couch the setting sun 
■ Had thrown its latest ray, 
Where in his last strong agony 

A dying warrior lay, 
The stern old Baron Rudiger, 

Whose frame had ne'er been bent 
By wasting pain, till time and toil 

Its iron strength had spent. 



Humor, Sentiment, and Reflection. 471 

" They come around me here and say 

My days of life are o'er, 
That I shall mount my noble steed 

And lead my band no more ; 
They come, and to my beard they dare 

To tell me now, that I, 
Their own liege lord and master born, — 

That I — ha! ha! must die. 

"And what is Death? I've dared him oft 

Before the Paynim spear, — 
Think ye he 's enter'd at my gate, 

Has come to seek me here ? 
I 've met him, faced him, scorn'd him, 

When the fight was raging hot, — 
I '11 try his might — I '11 brave his power ; 

Defy, and fear him not. 

" Ho ! sound the tocsin from my tower, 

And fire the culverin, — 
Bid each retainer arm with speed, — 

Call every vassal in ; 
Up with my banner on the wall, — 

The banquet board prepare, — 
Throw wide the portal of my hall, 

And bring my armor there ! " 

A hundred hands were busy then, — 
The banquet forth was spread, — 

And rung the heavy oaken floor 
With many a martial tread, 



472 Speaker and Header. 

While from the rich, dark tracery 

Along the vaulted wall, 
Lights gleam'd on harness, plume, and spear, 

O'er the proud old Gothic hall. 

Fast hurrying through the outer gate, 

The mail'd retainers pour'd, 
On through the portal's frowning arch, 

And throng'd around the board. 
While at its head, within his dark, 

Carved oaken chair of state, 
Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger, 

With girded falchion, sate. 

" Fill every beaker up, my men, 

Pour forth the cheering wine ; 
There 's life and strength in every drop, — 

Thanksgiving to the vine ! 
Are ye all there, my vassals true ? — 

Mine eyes are waxing dim ; 
Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, 

Each goblet to the brim. 

" Ye 're there, but yet I see ye not. 
* Draw forth each trusty sword, — 
And let me hear your faithful steel 

Clash once around my board : 
I hear it faintly : — Louder yet ! — 

What clogs my heavy breath ? 
Up all, — and shout for Rudiger, 

< Defiance unto Death ! ' " 



Humor , Sentiment, and Reflection. 473 

Bowl rang to bowl, steel clang'd to steel, 

And rose a deafening cry 
That made the torches flare around, 

And shook the flags on high : — 
a Ho! cravens, do ye fear him? — 

Slaves, traitors ! have ye flown ? 
Ho ! cowards, have ye left me 

To meet him here alone ? 

" But I defy him: — let him come!" 

Down rang the massy cup, 
While from its sheath the ready blade 

Came flashing halfway up ; 
And, with the black and heavy plumes 

Scarce trembling on his head, 
There in his dark, carved oaken chair 

Old Rudiger sat, dead! 



THE OTHER FELLOW. 1 

William Hawley Smith. 

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says that in every 
one of us there are two persons. First, there is your- 
self, and then there is the Other Fellow ! Now one 
of these is all the time doing things, and the other sits 
inside and tells what he thinks about the performance. 

1 From The Evolution of " Dodd." Page 93. Copyright by W. W. 
Knowles & Co. 



474 Speaker and Reader. 

Thus, I do so and so, act so and so, seem to the world 
so and so ; but the Other Fellow sits in judgment on 
me all the time. 

I may tell a lie, and do it so cleverly that the people 
may think I have done or said a great and good thing ; 
and they may shout my praises far and wide. But the 
Other Fellow sits inside and says, " You lie ! you lie ! 
you 're a sneak, and you know it ! ! " I tell him to shut 
up, to hear what the people say about me ; but he only 
continues to repeat over and over again, " You lie ! you 
lie! you 're a sneak, and you know it ! ! " 

Or, again, I may do a really noble deed, but perhaps 
be misunderstood by the public, who may persecute me 
and say all manner of evil against me falsely ; but the 
Other Fellow will sit inside and say, " Never mind, old 
boy ! It 's all right ! stand by ! " 

And I would rather hear the "Well done" of the 
Other Fellow than the shouts of praise of the whole 
world ; while I would a thousand times rather that the 
people should shout and hiss themselves hoarse with 
rage and envy than that the Other Fellow should sit 
inside and say, " You lie ! you lie ! you 're a sneak, 
and you know it ! " 



% 



DEC 13 1900 



s 



